


Thor & Family's Camping Adventures Part II, In Which They Actually Do Some Camping

by 5ofSpades



Series: Thor and Family's Camping Adventures [2]
Category: Norse Mythology, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Arrow in the Knee, Camping, Community: norsekink, Domestic Bliss?, Dubious Consent, Everyone is a Jotunn, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Illustrated, Intersex, Intersex Loki, Jotunn | Frost Giant, Jötunn Loki, Lactation, M/M, Mpreg, Odin's A+ Parenting, Other, Road Trips, Slave Loki, Underage Drinking, Yes it has pictures in it!, Æsir are Delicious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 08:16:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 52
Words: 78,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5ofSpades/pseuds/5ofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Which Asa-Thor, his frost giant slave Loki, and their family go on a road/camping trip across the realms, meeting the colourful cast of the Poetic Edda along the way.</p><p>aka How the Poetic Edda was mutilated by a ThunderFrost fic, complete with illustrations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Divorce Rates between Tropical Fishes and Alpine Birds

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:  
> Instead of allowing Odin to take the Casket and doom the realm to global warming, Laufey instead paid tribute in goods and lives. Better to have some of his people enslaved than all of them doomed to a slow death.
> 
> Jotunn slaves no longer of use were disposed in many ways. One of which was to be fixed to a stake and left to starvation and the exposure of hot Asgard sun.
> 
> Thor, having recently lost Sif (ironically defeated not in battle but by childbirth/ditched Thor for a better man, you decide) and left with their daughter Þrúðr, passed by a stave to which a tiny pregnant Jotunn was tied and getting gang-raped by the locals. Thoughts turned to the time of his wife's own pregnancy, Thor scattered the peasants and took the slave home, who gave labor shortly after to a son.
> 
> Then upon discovering his new slave had magic, and was oh so witty, Thor embarked on educational warrior camping trips with his daughter and two new favorite slaves as soon as the babies were old enough. Cue family adventure times.
> 
> \+ If Loki wet nurses Þrúðr along with his own  
> \+ If Loki wet nurses Thor too, the big baby  
> \+ If one camping trip had to be cut short because Thor got shot with an arrow to the knee
> 
>  
> 
> And this, dear readers, is the part where they go camping. Best read after Part I.

_**Divorce Rates between Tropical Fishes and Alpine Birds** _

Thor and company took to the road on foot. They stopped in camps while between towns, and Thor showed his daughter the many ways in which Asgard’s wild lands sustained them. They stopped at taverns and inns while in villages and hamlets, and Thor pointed out to his daughter how their people lived.

Past green pastures, past fertile farmlands, into the deep dense woods they went. Up bubbling stream, up rocky slopes, up the tall snowy mountains they went.

**

“Ah, I know this place!” Thor exclaimed as the troupe settled down to camp in the crack between two giant rocks. “My father took me here as a boy. We are in Þrymheimr, the holds of Lady Skaði, the goddess of snowshoes and the hunt, and her husband Njörðr, Vanir Lord of the great seas. Look at yonder snowdrifts. Her lodge should not be far away. We will make for it tomorrow. She would gladly welcome us there.”

Þrúðr huddled further into her fur-lined cloak, “It is freezing Daddy. Why would anyone want to live here?”

Like his dam, Váli was unaffected by the cold, and only donned a light jacket to shield from the wind. The name Njörðr sounded familiar to him. “Master, does not Lord Njörðr live in his dwellings at Nóatún? I faintly remember seeing him alone, when you took us there years before. The only lady in his house was his sister.” 

Váli disliked the sister. She had slapped him and pushed him to the ground for taking a grape from the table when Thor and Þrúðr weren’t there, and sneered that the Asgardian Prince should have instilled more discipline in his pet beasts. Váli thought she was just jealous that the torc Thor gave to Loki was finer than hers. That or she must have really disliked the Jötnar.

“Which is part of the reason why Skaði refuses to go there,” Loki muttered under his breath.

“Well,” Thor gave an uncomfortable cough. “Sometimes husband and wife do not live together, Váli. You see, Skaði is of the mountains. The cry of the seagulls and the splashing of waves upon summer beaches pleased her not. And Njörðr is of the ocean. The howl of the wolves and the rustling of the pines in winter storms unnerved him. When they first wed, they would in Þrymheimr spend nine years, then alight to Nóatún for another nine1. When I came here as a boy with the AllFather, Njörðr was here to welcome us into his wife’s halls. The feast after was of most excellent quality, and the hosts looked happy together.”

“They grew apart after the years I suppose? Tiring of climes they disapproved of, or tiring of each other I wonder?” Loki interjected.

Þrúðr’s eyes grew huge and round, “Daddy, you won’t do this would you? Live far away from Loki and Váli? Can we not go to Jötunheimr? I heard it is even colder. What if they want to stay there?”

“Fear not dear Princess, ours is a completely different relationship. I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to. And Jötunheimr had cast me out, there is no place there for me.” Loki patted her hair and gave her the first potato from the batch he was roasting, buttered with goat cheese.

He then gave Thor the second one, because the Prince had looked at him so. “And fear not dear Prince, on the subject of leaving, I don’t want to.”

**

The doors to Skaði’s great lodge’s tall walls were left open a crack. Impatient and sure of their welcome, Thor led his company through it.

“Fair Skaði, goddess of snow shoes! Let us board within your halls for the night,” Thor called out in front of the lodge doors.

Strange that the windows were unlit, and no servant came to greet them. Perhaps the harsh climes drove away some of the hold’s inhabitants? Thor did not remember the towns of Þrymheimr so under-populated. Yet along the way, they saw many abandoned houses and empty homes. Perhaps there were some catastrophes? Avalanches or the plague maybe? But why had he not heard of them? Why had his father not sent aid?

Thor drew in a deep breath and tried again, “'Tis I, Thor, Prince of Asgard! We have met before, gracious lady, when I was but a boy.”

But no one answered.

Loki bundled up Þrúðr, and all of them settled to pitch a tent in the great arch of the lodge’s doors. Perhaps someone would come on the morrow? At the very least, they could walk back to the nearest town to seek answers.

While Thor was holding out their bedrolls to spread out over the ground, the hairs on the back of his neck rose, and a thrill raced down his spine. It was a familiar feeling that had saved him and his troops many times in the war, the feeling of sensing powerful frost giants about. (It had taken a while for his senses to tune out Loki. When he first started bedding his slave regularly, he had woken up sweat-drenched a few times in the dark of the night, panting with nervous breath, with Loki choking beneath him, desperately trying to pry his Master’s iron grip from his half-crushed neck. Váli never registered though, partially because Thor first met him when he was but a small bundle suckling hard at his dam’s milk-laden tits.) 

Thor hushed the children, and bade Loki help hide them with an illusion. And not a moment too soon, for the great doors of the wooden wall slammed wide upon their hinges, and in strode a great frost giant, with a few smaller ones following after. The giant’s nostrils flared at the scent of Asgardians. Its great blood red eyes zoomed in onto Thor, who had already drawn his sword. 

“Who dare pass through my halls unannounced?!” the giant roared as it hurled its burden, the carcass of a great boar half as tall as itself, at Thor. While the Thunderer dodged away, leaving the boar to smash through the snow and crash to a stop against the lodge’s wall, the giant snatched up its bow and fired in rapid succession. The arrows thudded one after another, as they embedded themselves in the grounds Thor had covered, with the last one nicking a strand of golden hair. Behind the great giant, its retinue also threw down their spoils, and drew bows long and short.

Thor steeled himself, preparing to put down the whole lot of them for defiling Skaði’s halls. Was the goddess murdered? Had her townspeople been living in fear and oppression under this giant’s glacial fist? He only hoped Loki had enough presence of mind to hurry the children away.

So when Loki stepped forward from the shadows, blue skinned and red eyed, Thor cursed out-loud. Was the seiðmaðr so overconfident in his newly unbound abilities, that he had lost all his self-preservation instincts? Or did the Jötunn seek to rejoin his own kind? Could Thor cut the legs out from under the giant and fend off Loki’s magic at the same time?

But Loki cast no spells and brokered no alliances. Instead he raised his hand and called out, “Dear cousin, I am Loki, bound servant and nurse of the child of this Asgardian before you. I would have your name!”

“I am Öndurguð of the hills and snow drifts, Lord of this keep. Unfortunate cousin, do you seek to protect your own oppressor?” the giant rumbled.

“I dare not presume to protect one so mighty. But he once saved my life, and has ever been fair to me and mine. I hope only to stay your hand, so that bloodshed may be avoided tonight. We have journeyed long, and I’d rather rest in a soft furred bed than clean blood and gore from the Thunderer’s blade.” Loki strode forward a few steps more, his arms spread open at his sides.

The giant looked surprised, “Thunderer? Could this be Thor before me? Small Prince, how you have grown.”

“You knew me?” Thor was caught off-guard as well.

He was even more shocked, so much so that his grip upon his sword slackened, when the giant murmured a spell, and shrank down into the figure of a tall sturdy woman with heavy freckles and long red braids falling past her hips.

“Lady Skaði!?”

**

“And this is my daughter, Þrúðr. Her mother passed in labour. May she feast and hunt in Valhalla now,” Thor brought Þrúðr forth to be introduced.

“Oh she is most precious. Let aunt Skaði hold you! Her features, her mannerisms! She is just like you when you were small, Thor.2” Skaði was delighted at the sight of the young Princess.

“Loki had already introduced himself. And here is little Váli.”

Skaði looked pointedly between her two adult guests.

“No, he is mine alone. And yes, other people have assumed the same before and assumed wrongly. Now run along children.” Loki quickly shooed the children away to play with the servants’ whelps down the hall.

**

“There used to be a portal to the land of the frost here, and through it, people came and went,” Skaði told her guests, as her servants set the table. The main course being the boar she had chucked at her current guest of honour. 

“This was a prosperous hold. It did not live off farming or hunting, but crafts and trade. Such goods and gold and people used to flow through here. Some children of Jötunheimr thought sons and daughters of Asgard fair, and the two people intermarried frequently3.” Skaði raised her cup to Váli and nodded at the boy, “You would have been right at home here, son of two realms. But all good things must come to an end. Thor, you came to me as a boy when the hold had just started to enter its decline, as fear and suspicion grew between two once-allied realms.”

“Then the war came. To erase a point of vulnerability, the AllFather bade his brothers destroy the portal. I still remember the brilliant flash of light that lit up the sky as the ancient doorway shattered. Many of the giants who had not fled fast enough were put to death. I could only imagine that the same fate befell the Æsir stuck on the other side. I was protected by my station as the wife of Njörðr, and through my pleadings to Odin, my subjects with half Æsir-blood were mostly spared. I wonder if Laufey did the same, or if halfling bones litter Jötunheimr’s great canyons now. Though the bulk of the war did not rage here, slowly, the hold still died. What you see now is but a remnant of more glorious times. Most of the inhabitants left here are the halfblooded children from that time before, neither openly accepted in Asgard nor Jötunheimr.”

Þrúðr interjected before Loki could hush her, “Daddy said you don’t live together with Njörðr anymore.”

Skaði looked sad, “Aye. We are husband and wife in naught but name these days. He left the monster for a fairer bride most like himself4, and I have been unfaithful in return.”

**

That night, Skaði dreamed. It was a dream she had not had in a long time.

He was still young and carefree and known only by his given name Öndurguð, and Njörðr was just another handsome visitor to his town.

They were both bright and curious then. Öndurguð striding across the mountains, with Njörðr perched upon his shoulder to point at trees and birds and wave at the smaller people below.

The hold was bustling and so full of life, the portal a shining light across the lake. The grass was green with summer, and the air full of songs.

When Skaði woke, her pillow was wet with tears.

**

Thor spat out his drink one morning at an inn, when Loki merrily mentioned that Skaði had confided in him the identity of the man she was unfaithful to Njörðr with. Why he was none other than the great AllFather himself. No wonder Þrymheimr still stood despite the nature of its inhabitants. Skaði must have made a comely sight on her knees before Odin, with all that pretty red hair unbound around her5.

**

On the eve of the same day, Thor had to shut his mouthy thrall up by making him put that accursed silver tongue to better uses, after the little giant would not leave the topic alone, and on top of that, started to question the fertility of the line of Odin.

“Do you think your father still visits the snowy goddess even now? Strange you do not have a half-brother yet. You know Thor, we Jötnar are a fairly fertile race, able to intermingle with many others. Maybe there is something amiss with the line of Odin? After all, I am not yet with child despite all the seeds you’ve filled me with. And I do catch very easily, ever since my youth. Hmmmfff - !!!”

“- my Prince, if you want your sword attended to, you could have just said, instead of pressing my face so suddenly to- Ack! Ah, ahh! Oh Ymir’s bones. Don’t stop. Yes I promise to d-drop the matter! Ahgh. Ahh! Just don’t stop doing that!”

Thor pressed his slave’s head back down to his crotch again and moaned at the contact. His other hand fondled the blue upturned buttocks for a while longer just to spite Loki, and only resumed slapping and pinching his dripping folds and swollen dark clit when Loki broke down and begged most prettily.

Thor had not given much thought to children before, yet now he could not help but imagine a blue belly swelled by his own seed, and wonder if the milk produced for a Thorson would taste even sweeter.

**  
  
**NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  


1\. They would have racked up quite a bit of airmiles, had they lived in our times, dear readers. 

2\. A brat.

3\. And the sons and daughters of Asgard thought the sex was fantastic. But people usually leave that part out when there are children present.

4\. Very like himself. Very very like himself. Váli had met her, and could attest. 

5\. She was on her back, but we can’t expect Loki to know everything now can we?  
  
**


	2. Monkeys with Fire

_**Monkeys with Fire** _

For some variety, Thor took his little troupe through Midgard, using a rune stone gifted by his wise and knowledgeable father.

“And this is Midgard, whose people are young but promising!” exclaimed Thor.

Behind him, a human accidentally set his primitive settlement on fire, as Loki chuckled in pyromaniacal glee.

**


	3. Drink Milk Love Life

_**Drink Milk Love Life** _

While breaking their fast on hard bread and cheese one morning, Loki noticed Thor looking mournfully at his chest.

“What is it my Lord?” the Jötunn slave raised an eyebrow.

“There is no more milk. It would have gone wonderfully with this bread. Softened it for sure,” Thor said.

“I miss the milk too!” Þrúðr exclaimed.

“Me too,” Váli mumbled.

“If we are not sitting upon a wide open plain for as far as the eyes can see, I would ask all three of you fools to get out of my sight! Do you think me a cow or some goat, to be milked at your convenience?” Loki cried out indignantly.

**

But Loki still purchased a large jug of cow’s milk at the next farm they passed through. The children were still growing, and some extra calcium would only do them good.

**


	4. Glove Apartment

_**Glove Apartment** _

Thor and company came upon a barren land, a strange sight indeed in the golden realm. The grass was dry and brittle, ready to be blown to dust by a strong gust of wind. The trees were near death, with sad-looking leaves hanging onto nearly bare branches, as if men dangling over a cliff’s edge, before fatigue made them let go and fall to sure deaths.

Thor was surprised to see such a dead place in Asgard, where the land was usually fertile, and its bounties plenty. Loki pointed to some of the trees that still stood. They were wide and tall, heaven-reaching giants that could not have grown if there wasn’t once a thriving forest here. Some catastrophe must have reshaped this land for the worse.

**

They looked for games to supplement their supplies, but even Váli’s keen eyes could only find rats too skinny to be even worth the eating, and the occasional poisonous snake slithering by.

Thor wondered how the locals subsisted themselves, for he remembered faintly that this hold still paid taxes to the throne. The Thunderer made a note to himself, to send a message to his father about tax exemptions at the next pigeon carrier outpost1.

As if summoned by Thor’s thoughts of locals, Váli spotted something tall, mousy-haired, and of the tax-paying kind, and Þrúðr hailed him, “Who goes there? We are travellers, and would know more about this place.”

“I am Skrýmir, a simple hunter, as were my father before me, and his father before him.” The young man appeared just as startled to see strangers passing through, and was visibly intimidated by the company’s fine clothes.

But shy as he was, he was of a good simple folk. Upon learning that the company was looking for food and shelter, he offered to share his food, and guide the visitors to the next village.

“You both have young children with you. They are weary and tired. Look how their eyelids struggle to stay open, and how their steps stumble. They need their fathers’ arms. To free up your burdens, I will carry your provisions along with my own,” Skrýmir offered. When Thor agreed, the hunter gathered all their supplies into one bundle, and hefted it upon his sturdy shoulders.

**

The forest they set up camp in was little better than what they’ve passed by before. Thor wondered what Skrýmir could have been hunting in these parts. Rats? Tree bark? The dirt perhaps?

But apparently the boy knew his land well, for he brought a nine-horned stag2 back to camp and set about skinning and butchering it. Loki had taken the children further into the woods to forage for small things like snake eggs and edible roots, as well as to conduct an impromptu lesson in the wonderful magical properties of things inhabiting a land near death. Skrýmir pointed to the dried branches and kindling around their camp, and asked Thor to start a fire, so that they may roast fine venison and dine well before the night.

Thor found all the kindling and branches burdensomely heavy. Strange how he who had might enough to lift two fattened oxen above his head was only able to pick up one or two small pieces of wood at a time. But Thor was stubborn and steadfast, and soon a good fire was stoking, with the deer rotating upon a spit above it, dripping fat to sizzle in the flames. Thor was panting and sweating profusely by that time, and could not be bothered to sit up from the ground where he lay, until Loki, finally returned from the woods with his own bounties and two hungry children, enticed him with a shank of leg meat and a skin of ale. Skrýmir laughed, and said that for a man so well-muscled, Thor tired out all too quickly. One would have thought him stronger based on appearances. But Loki detected a hint of nervousness in Skrýmir’s eyes, where his laughter did not quite reach. The boy hid it well, but Loki was himself a master at masking true thoughts and emotions.

The group tore into the meat enthusiastically, and ate the whole stag: meat, tendon, offal, marrows and all. Loki set aside some of the roots they’ve found, and made a strange but no less tasty soup of snake eggs, tubers, and two plucked ravens, which was just as quickly inhaled. They also shared their other provisions between themselves, such as honeyed breads and cheeses and mead. These they could not finish, for Thor had packed much and took care to refresh his stock at each town. The store they had with them now was meant to last a week more yet. Skrýmir put away their combined food stocks into Thor’s enchanted bag and rolled out his animal skins, ready to rest. Loki set up their own bedrolls, and made pillows out of their extra clothing and personal effects. He cautioned that the woods were wild, and insisted to Thor and the children that they wear their weapons to bed. They each bade the others good night, and lay down to heavy sleep.

**

When Thor and company woke the next morning, Skrýmir, their food, provisions and extra camping supplies were all gone. All that’s left were the weapons they wore to sleep, the clothes on their backs, and their bedrolls and pillows beneath them. They would have been robbed of all coins too, had Loki not kept them close to his own skin.

The fire pit was also different. Instead of a collection of little branches and shavings of wood, it was a gigantic pyre made of great pines and oaks, tall as many great long boats stood vertically and stacked one atop another, and wider than five grown men could encircle with their arms joined.

Thor bellowed at the sky in rage, and swore that Skrýmir best pray their paths won’t cross again, for he will break the little thief’s neck.

**

They trudged out of the forest hungry and cross, and came upon a sad looking village with sad looking farms.

The farmers received the wary travellers, and upon hearing their tales, were amazed that they escaped with their lives.

For a terrible mountain giant roamed these parts. Its roar shook the land, its strides crossed lakes as if they were puddles, its footprints were like craters upon the land, and its glove was the size of a great hall, with each finger a spacious room. 

The giant’s father’s father moved to these lands from far-away Jötunheimr and settled with his family here. The old giant was a hunter of some renown, as was his son. The villagers at first disliked and distrusted them, and thought to petition for the local Jarl’s help in banishing their unwelcomed guests. Theirs was a tight-knit community, and none wished to share the games around these hills with outsiders, least of all with strange creatures from stranger lands blessed by far too hearty appetites. 

But then the villagers noticed their farms had grown more fertile, each acre yielding more grains and fruits. And their forests and streams had grown more plentiful, their beasts and fishes multiplied and thrived. The elders whispered that it was the giants’ magic, for the mountain giants were spirits born of the land, and this their repayment to the village for accepting them here. So for years, giants and farmers coexisted, so much so, that the giants were tentatively included as a part of the community. Spirits that they were, they were not beholden to a single form. Soon a gray-haired old hunter, his spouse, son, and child-in-law were a common sight at the town’s moots, weddings, and funerals3. It wasn’t before long that the old man’s son’s son was born, a quiet little boy named Skrýmir.

The times were good. There were even talks of introducing Skrýmir to one of the Æsir maidens for marriage. But suddenly for reasons only known to Lords and Kings, the war broke out. An army marched by these lands, collecting provisions and food for the soldiers, conscription whatever able-bodied men they could. They chanced upon the mountain giants, and Skrýmir’s father, grandfather, and their consorts were all struck down, while Skrýmir hid himself in the hallows of a great tree, trembling with confusion and fear4.

Soft-spoken Skrýmir was never the same. He became insensible to words and pleas, and could not recognize the companions he grew up playing and hunting with. In fact, he killed and ate them, when they tried to coax their friend out of the tree after the army had gone. His first victims. He became a dreadful beast who terrorized the hold, killing and eating all who fell prey to his traps. And the land, once so fertile and beautiful, withered and decayed as if a reflection of Skrýmir’s broken mind.

**

Thor asked the farmers to sell him some food, as all their provisions were stolen by the giant. He would pay them handsomely in coins. But the farmers shook their weary heads, for even with money, they had very little to spare. For how could they grow anything from soil made hard and barren in the mountain giant’s insanity and grief? They had their taxes to pay, children to feed, and nothing to sell to a travelling Lord and his company. 

None knew how to appease the mountain giant or apprehend it. Even the gods could not bring back the dead, and the giant always disappeared without a trace when it did not wish to be found. One by one those who were able moved away, with the Jarl and his household the first to relocate, until all that remained in this once thriving land was this one sad little village, trapped under the shadow of the giant and the grip of poverty.

**

Despite their lack, the locals were still kind enough to share dwellings with Thor and provide what hospitality they could. Although they were quick to eye Loki and Váli with suspicion, after a slip of the tongue from Þrúðr revealed the two to be not free-born servants, but Jötnar slaves.

Thor paid them no mind, and gathered his daughter and slaves to share what little food they managed to scavenge.

“Give it to the children. I can do without,” Loki gently but firmly pushed away the food Thor tried to pass to him.

“The part of Jötunheimr I hailed from has long winters and many lean years, and its children weather hunger well.” As to illustrate his point, Loki backed it up with an anecdote, “Why once a former master of mine bound me and locked me into a chest for three months without food or water, just to see how a frost giant would fare. And here I stand before you still.”

It wasn’t the hunger or thirst that got to him. Loki’s frost giant body was perfectly capable of sustaining itself by absorbing the moisture in the air and breaking down its own muscles while deprived. It was the loneliness and the silence, to be ignored and forgotten, stored away like a tool not in use or an article of clothing out of fashion, that nearly drove Loki mad in the end.

“Which owner was that?” Thor asked with narrowed eyes after he shoved half a rutabaga forcefully into Loki’s hands.

“Oh you needn’t worry about that. His wife mistook one berry for another while baking his favorite pie, and they both dine with their forefathers now.” Loki took one small bite, and saved the rest for later. His newest owner had spoiled him badly by stuffing him with three solid meals a day.

**

The farmers begged, “You appear a great lord. You are armed and rich enough to have coins and slaves. Please help us somehow. Take pity on these poor people.”

And Thor was ever a defender of Asgard, having sworn himself to her first and foremost since he was old enough to pick up a practice blade.

“Fear not good people, the giant had done you all great injury and myself dishonour. I will bring it to heel,” he promised to his desperate hosts.

**

Thor went on to gather Loki and the children for his new task. It would be good practice for Þrúðr. Skrýmir was young, alone, and untrained in the arts of war.

He found them near the pig pen, where a single swine composed of skin and bones rooted sadly in the sludge. Loki was standing aside impassively with Váli, while Þrúðr held a man’s face into the mud and boxed him repeatedly on the head.

“What are you doing young lady? Stop this at once! Loki, why have you not stopped her?” Thor demanded as he pulled his daughter aside and helped up the man.

“He and a few others tried to splash pig feces on Loki and Váli, saying they should pay for what their kind did! It wasn’t fair!” Þrúðr argued, and managed one last kick to the poor man’s shin. “I wanted to thrash them all, but Loki said since he deflected the attempt with a spell, I should be content with punishing the ringleader.”

Thor frowned. These men had long lived with fear in their hearts, and took the first opportunity to vent their bottled anger upon a perceived easy-target. Yet though they had conducted themselves dishonourably, these were simple, uneducated folks. Thor could not fault them for this, especially since by law, thralls had no rights, and Jötnar thralls even less so. How could he punish these already suffering farmers, when higher born men in the capital did much worse without repercussions?

So he dropped the man back into the mud, and bade his daughter and slaves away. They had a thief to hunt.

**

“I know you may not wish to help after the locals’ crass behavior, and that you have little love for the Æsir, but still I ask. I march against Skrýmir on the morrow. As this mountain giant had wronged you too in making fools of us all, will you please join me, Loki?” Thor asked his slave while they shared a bedroll that night.

“Aye. Not because of the lowly peasants’ pathetic begging, but because you’ve asked, my Lord,” Loki answered. What choice did he have?

**

The farmers and their hired mercenaries (back when the farms still brought in money, back when the locals still had hope) could not find Skrýmir, because as they were born from the earth, the mountain giants could meld as easily back into it. Thor was no scholar, but he knew a thing or two when it came to the abilities of giants.

But how would they find it in this vast land? 

It was Loki, sly cruel Loki, who suggested that they look for Skrýmir’s father and grandfather’s burial site. 

Váli climbed upon the tallest tree in the vicinity, and with his keen eyes spotted some unusual mountain ranges. They alone were lush and green, an unnatural contrast to the dead lands around them. It must have been where Skrýmir had hunted his stag.

The company headed towards these mountains. As they neared, Loki pointed out the four separate ranges, “There lay the bodies of the kinsmen of Skrýmir. Mountains they were called in life, and mountains they became in death!”

Thor raised his hand to the heavens, and called bolts of lightning and fire down upon the mountains, to set the trees ablaze, scorch the earth black, and split the soil and rocks to expose white vines of mineralized bones beneath. Columns of smoke rose to the sky, as beasts and birds of all kinds fled in panic while their homes burned.

In the distance there came a roar not of Thor’s thunder, as Skrýmir, now in its full terrifying height, lumbered towards the Thunderer and his company. Its great height towered over the tallest trees. Its guttural wails the very song of rage and grief.

But Thor’s household was ready for it this time.

An ice javelin flew swift and steady through the air, powered by Loki’s magic and guided by Váli’s aim. It pierced the giant just below its right patella, and brought it down on its knees 5.

The children darted quickly to a safer distance. Þrúðr pried large white boulders (or were they bones of the dead?) out of the mountains, and again aided by Váli’s sure hand, hurled them at their target.

Thor redirected his lightning upon felled Skrýmir, and struck it direct and true with their bright bolts. He then ran up the giant’s ruined leg, all the way to its heaving chest. There he drove a spike made with the trunk of a great oak straight into the poor wretch’s beating heart.

**

The people rejoiced, for the terror of the land was dead. They stripped the flesh from its bones for compost, and grinded its bones for bone meal. The innards were fed to the dogs and swine, and the skull fashioned into a trophy in front of the village lodge. With its body, the soil would be fertile again. And without it barring the way, the riches of the four mountains were theirs to reap.

They sang praises for Thor the great, whom they have learnt was their noble Prince, came down from his father’s golden halls to deliver his loyal subjects. How great his might, that he felled a mountain giant with one strike! How beautiful his daughter, her glossy hair shinier than elusive gold! And how wise they were both, to tame frost giant seiðmaðrs to do their bidding.

**

Unfortunately, Thor and company never found their lost things. Skrýmir must have eaten all that was edible, and buried the rest deep into the earth.

**

“-and that is why Skrýmir was either crazed by grief, or an idiot beyond belief, and I feel no remorse in delivering him to Hel’s embrace6. If you ever have an enemy, of whose strength you are unsure, but still wish to be permanently rid of, and by trick or chance got him dining and wining with you, you do not test his strength with illusions, provoke him, and then run away, my son. You poison the bastard,” Loki lectured his young and impressionable babe, while their masters were dragged off by the villagers to their celebrations.

Váli nodded. Clearly his dam was wise.

“Now as homework, before lunch tomorrow, come up with three ways in which to poison someone without harming yourself, while appearing to be eating and drinking the same food and wine.”

“Only three, Dada? You underestimate,” Váli smiled at his dam7.

**  
  
**NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  
1\. Dimension-breaking teleportation device/intergalactic rail-gun shaped like a sparkly rainbow on acid, but yet not even a single telephone line installed.

2\. Had this been another type of tale, the stag would have been a victim of radioactive contamination, and the land suffering nuclear fallout. But since this is a story of swords and magic, it was merely a magical stag suffering from a magical nuclear fallout.

3\. Immortals though they were, the Æsir were not invulnerable to accidents. And as a wise man once said, shit happens.

4\. Thor and Loki called Skrýmir a boy, but in truth both were not much older themselves, in god years, of course.

5\. He was an adventurer like you, but then… Oh wait, wrong Nordic story.

6\. Very literally in this case. Loki even burnt a note to little Hela, asking her to take good care of a mousy-haired hunter soon to come her way. Maybe she can help him find his grandfather.

7\. They went on to poison some of the more obnoxious villagers for the lolz, so that the fools were stuck to their outhouses for the rest of the week. It was good practice and an excellent family bonding exercise.  
  
**


	5. Sexy Twin Sisters

_**Sexy Twin Sisters** _

Thor and company came to the border town of Barrey. Here stood the great woods between three realms, and the official passage to Vanir lands1. Thor pointed out the streets and buildings to the children, perfect marriages of the grandeur of Asgard and the delicate craftsmanship of Vanaheimr. The people milling about were also more slender and fair. Compared to full Æsir, they were best likened to well-crafted daggers and strong bows, while the latter cleaving broadswords and powerful hammers. Loki stood over many of the locals, and Thor was a burly titan that dwarfed them in both width and height. 

Many drove Jötnar slaves about. Some of these slaves were tribunes from Laufey, others prisoners of war never released, but most were giants illegally captured at the edge of the Barrey Woods. But so prevalent was the practice, and so profitable it was for Æsir and Vanir nobles alike, that even Odin was forced to turn his single eye away, and slacken the vigilant watch of Huginn and Muninn.

**

The company rested for a few days, replenished their strengths and provisions, readied all their papers, and passed through delicately arched gates to fair Vanaheimr. There they crossed more forests and rivers, and came to Gotland and her grand capital Lejre, Lord Fróði’s serene throne. 

Thor had long heard of Fróði, who was praised by Vanir ambassadors to Asgard for his wisdom. See how Gotland thrived under his rule? No famine nor poverty nor strive could be found there. All men were strong of arms yet called one another brothers. So great was the Lord’s renown, that his reign was named Peace Fróði by all far and wide.

Thor had longed to meet this great ruler, so that he may learn from him the way of Kings, and see how his methods compared to those of Odin’s. Loki however was full of skepticism.

“A land so full of peace and plenty seems a lie to me, for I have seen the rot covered by shining veils, and the sneers behind friendly masks,” Loki said to his Prince.

“Nay my good Jötunn, have ye yet some faith in fairness and virtue. Could it be that since you yourself are a crafty sort, that it made you slow to trust other men? The good Lord’s rule is lauded far and wide by many gentle-fellows of repute. See how prosperous his realm is about us, and how happy the people!” Thor countered, gesturing at the bustling market around them. Why couldn’t his slave see that sometimes people can be pure and good?

Loki gave him such a look, that Thor immediately knew he had said something stupid again, and had offended the sensitive small giant. Yet he could not figure out what. He spoke only the truth!

“And many swore the streets of Lejre are paved with gold!” Lok exclaimed and stomped on the stone pavement for emphasis. “How quickly our gullible Prince falls to the hearsays of other men.”

“But Lejre does export much gold! Even the arm bands that you so favour were forged with this most elusive metal from here. The skalds simply exaggerated a little,” Thor looked to his slave. The arm bands do suit Loki well, on skin blue or fair. Perhaps he would trade for more gold trinkets here to deck his Jötunn with.

“Well Master, how about we make a wager? Instead of going as Royalties of Asgard and their trusty thralls, we request an audience with Lord Fróði as a humble travelling merchant and his household? It is by how a ruler treats his common subjects, that the sovereign’s true nature is often revealed,” Loki smirked challengingly at his Prince.

“Fine by me. It would be a new experience, and my curiosity is piqued. What would we wager?” Thor looked to his slave.

Loki leaned close, and whispered in his master’s ears with a low quiet voice, so that the children would not overhear. Thor blushed crimson, and agreed readily to disguise and wager both2.

**

Thor had Loki pick out some of the finer animal pelts they’ve been hoarding, hoping to make them gifts to the hold’s Lord. They had not the weight of silver or gold, but the shine of perfect ermine, minx, and fox furs rivaled that of the precious metals’.

But the men guarding Fróði’s great lodge were not impressed.

“Our Lord has gold aplenty, yet you think to seek his personal audience and waste his time, when you have naught but these ratty animal pelts to show?” the guard captain laughed at them. He took the best pelts anyway, as a fee for his troubles.

Loki all but radiated “I told you so”. 

Thor felt quite cheated. But as he drew to his full impressive height, and made to smite the insolent and corrupt guardsmen, Loki gently held back his arm. Thor suddenly remembered their wager, and how a humble travelling merchant had no jurisdiction over city guards.

**

Denied entrance to Fróði’s high halls and a fair walk from the town below, the company was forced to seek creative shelter yet again. So it was fortunate then that the great lodge’s grounds were wide and sparsely guarded (so peaceful was the hold, that there were no thieves or brigands about, no deft-handed gentlemen sneaking under the covers of night), and many sheds and structures littered it.

“We will rest in one of these stone mills. That one,” Thor pointed.

“Really Master? The biggest one?” Loki raised his eyebrows, but followed nonetheless.

As they neared it, Váli’s ears perked. He was sure he heard singing. The voices were sweet and clear, but the song a mournful tune. It came from the biggest mill. Soon, the rest of the company heard it too, along with the sound of grinding.

When they slipped through a crack in the mill’s great door, they saw a giant grindstone set in the middle of the mill, the largest Thor had ever seen.

And there was no need to wonder what men could move such a stone, for chained to it were two giants of bronze skin and green leafy hair. They sang as they pushed the mill, their modesty preserved by scant scarps of loincloths that may have once been finer garments. Yet they looked different from all the giants Thor had seen and slew (and lain with).

Instead of creatures possessing both sexes, these giants were perhaps better described as giantesses. The sway of their full hips and the jiggle of their round breasts were somewhat hypnotizing, and Thor had not enjoyed a woman’s soft body since his latest adventures began. Loki’s lean muscles and jutting hip bones were pleasant enough, his quim and arse both delightfully responsive and yielding, but there was something to be said of the fairer sex’s allures. And despite their size and tired haggard looks, these were still very alluring women indeed. Twins they must have been, for both were in possession of identical fair looks. Their bodies, while not as supple as could be due to hard labour, were still as if visions of goddesses brought to life by a skilled mason’s chisels.

“I thought there were no women giants,” Thor spoke his thoughts out-loud.

“Ah but these are hill giants,” Loki said.

“Hill giants?” Thor looked at his slave.

“The mixed children of mountain giants and plain giants, obviously,” Loki looked back. Must he always explain everything?

Thor nodded, but privately thought Loki didn’t explain anything at all, again. He felt something tugging at his sleeve. Thor looked down, and saw shy little Váli.

“What is it, Váli?”

“I have been trying to gain your attention for a while now, Master. I simply wish to inform you that the two nice ladies have noticed us,” Váli said matter-of-factly, his long-suffering expression familiar.

That was when Thor realized both the singing and the grinding have stopped.

The two giantesses peered down.

“Sister, look upon these small people,” one giantess leaned her arms on the handle of the grindstone.

“Aye, such rare visitors, sister. Why do you disturb Fenja and Menja, small travellers? And my eyes are up here please,” the other giantess addressed the company at large.

Though the Thunderer had slain many giants, and had faced the strong sword arms of many a shieldmaidens, he was not one to strike at women unprovoked, especially now that he knew not all giants were of a bad sort. After a brief moment of awkward silence, Thor tried his best to treat the two giantesses as he would any other host-women, “Dear ladies, I am a fur merchant passing by these lands. Here are my daughter and our two most valued frost giant servants. We are weary with travel, yet the keep’s Lord has denied us lodgings. We simply wish to rest our feet in your hall for the night.”

“Fróði has grown ruder,” said one giantess.

“Or else surrounds himself with foul men,” said the other. “Have you food and drink to share? Break bread with us, and you shall sleep the night in this mill undisturbed. There are some hay bales stored here. Use them freely to make yourselves comfortable. Also we would speak to your Jötnar while looking upon their true forms. We have been kept from Jötunheimr, and chained to this mill as we are, had too long not seen any familiar faces from home.”

Thor thought the two giant maids most straightforward and practical, and saw no reason why not to share their foods. Loki reverted to his own skin, dropped the glamour on Váli, and started to take out their food stores from the bag of holdings3 to arrange artfully on the floor as it were Bilskirnir’s feasting table.

**

Thor and Loki were knowledgeable each in his own way, yet Fenja and Menja, perhaps because they’ve lived in different lands, or perhaps because they were of the womenfolk, knew many stories the Prince and frost giant thrall were not privy to. And Thor and Loki, having recently travelled far and not limited to the confines of a mill house, knew many different tales and recent news that the sisters delighted to hear. The sisters were also blessed with good singing voices, and they cooed at the children and sang for them.

“So, what are you two milling? I see naught but air turning under the grindstone,” Thor asked as he sucked at the marrow in a lamb bone.

“We grind gold and silver and good fortunes for this land. Such a magical stone is this,” one giantess hummed after she daintily bit off half of a roast boar, bones and all.

“We grind happiness and prosperity and everlasting peace for this land. Such wishes to be fulfilled,” the other added, squishing a wheel of cheese between two whole loafs of bread.

Together so heartily did the travellers and giantesses sup, that all the food stores the company had were filling their bellies before they noticed. No matter, Thor thought, food he could easily obtain again, good company on the other hand was ever hard to come by. To finish their night feast, he brought out their cache of good mead, and bid the giantesses sit and drink and talk with them some more. Váli, ever inquisitive and curious about his dam’s people, asked about the snow giants and mountain giants and hill giants, to which the two maids gladly answered. Thor was surprised to learn of such differences in the Jötnar and their customs and ways, having only been taught the differences in how to best slay them since he was Váli’s age.

Thor put his own question to the giantesses after taking a light swig of his cup, “Fair maids, I’ve noticed through my travels that many giants could become small by one mean or another. Could my companion here also have another form?” 

“Nay, he is clearly a runt,” said Fenja, as she took a draught from her own mead barrel.

“Poor tiny thing must have been undernourished while in the womb. Was he conceived during the great Æsir-Jötnar war?” asked Menja as she frowned.

**

The one called Fenja took up the mill again, and bade her sister rest a while more. Then they would switch, and each drink and mill in turn.

“Good maids, why do you return so hurriedly to your labours? Sit with us a while longer!” Thor called to the giantesses.

“Oh merchant, we are grateful for your generosity, and are glad to have you and your household’s company. But you must have noticed our chains. We are thralls, bond-maids of our Lord Fróði. Should this mill stop too long, men will come by to investigate, and their presence and forceful hands we care for not.”

“How came two fair maids be chained to the mill of Fróði?” Thor asked.

Fenja leaned her weight on the handle and set the mill in motion again. She nodded at Menja, who began their tale.

**

“We were both young girls when war came to our doors,” sang Menja

“It was on the steps of our father’s halls,” chanted Fenja.

“And at the entrance of our maiden chambers,” followed Menja.

“That we first knew the crunch of a man’s skull, and all the different colours of blood,” sang the sisters together.

“But hard as we fought.”  
“Our clan still fell.”  
“The AllFather’s might.”  
“Was the mightiest of all.”

“Look at us not with such eyes, kind travelling merchant.”  
“Would you not have done the same for your father?”  
“And your pious daughter the same for you?”

Thor could not object. For when he first picked up a sword not for tournament but for the spilling of a Jötunn’s blood, he was also barely a gangly youth.

“We were on the cusp of our maidenhood.”  
“Flowers budded but yet to bloom.”  
“But to the kin of those we’ve slain we were beasts.”  
“To be tied down and flogged and snuffed out for revenge.”

“It was then that Fróði passed us by.”  
“With a raised hand and a gentle voice he spared our young lives.”  
“Our father was dead.”  
“Our brothers were dead.”  
“Where else could we go, but with this man?”  
“For him we felt love.”  
“For him we felt devotion.”  
“For him our proud forms we willing shrank.”  
“And in his bed our bodies we willingly gave as thanks.”

“But why are you here? Tied to this mill? I cannot imagine how you could have displeased him so greatly, that your master would harshly punish you so!” Thor exclaimed. For all of Loki’s’ faults, he had rarely lifted his hand against the slave. The one time he was enraged enough to order Loki whipped, he had hurried to pull away the guard performing the task on the crack of the third lash, as Váli rushed into the courtyard, wailing and barely held back by the serving maids who chased hurriedly after. His retainers chided him for spoiling the Jötunn, but they weren’t the ones to suffer Loki’s disappointed looks and silent anger for days after4.

Fenja gave a sharp laugh, “Oh it was not through slights or disobedience that we ended up here!”

Menja giggled, “Although I supposed we only have ourselves to blame for being such naïve silly girls.”

“Fróði was gentle.”  
“Fróði was kind.”  
“To us Fróði never raised a heavy hand.”  
“Fenja often wished.”  
“Menja often sighed.”  
“That had the war not been.”  
“Had the Norns been kind.”  
“We would still be chieftain’s daughters.”  
“We would woo his hand.”  
“And bear him such sons.”  
“That their heroic deeds would resound throughout the lands.”

“Fróði was fair.”  
“Fróði was wise.”  
“But wealth and plenty the Norns never gave to Gotland.”

“So is this where the grindstone comes in then?” Loki asked. It was a powerful artifact, wasted to grind of all things, gold and so-called happiness for the Vanir Lord, and in such vast quantities too. Did the ignorant fool not know that the more powerful a magical artifact, the more seiðr would one day demand in return? To covet ceaseless wealth was already dangerous, but to obtain abstract things like happiness and a false veneer of peace through magic, the price would be steep indeed. 

“Aye, it came to him as a spoil of war, much as we were,” Fenja answered. “Although for the longest time he did not know its value, until an old shaman travelled through his lands.”

“It was on a spring hunt,” Menja recalled. “An old man passed before Lord Fróði’s camp, and asked for a drink of water. Fróði was ever kind, and ordered us to serve the man food and mead. In thanks, he revealed himself to be a wise-man by the name of Hengikjöptr, and privately congratulated Fróði for his possession of the wishing stone Grótti, the giant mill. He said that it would grind whatever its owner wished for, if only he could find someone strong enough to move it.”

“Lord Fróði did not believe him at first. Yet out of curiosity, he called for all the strongmen of his hold, and had each of them try their hands at the mill as a contest of strength. But alas, strained as they might, none could move it.”

“That was when we foolishly volunteered ourselves, after all the strongmen went home and the court adjourned for the day. Remembering that we were actually giants, Fróði agreed, partially in jest, and asked us to mill peace and wealth for his hold. He did not believe we could move it either, so long had we lived with him while shrunken to his size.”

“The grindstone was great and heavy.”  
“The grindstone was tall and wide.  
“The grindstone looked as if it was made for a giant.”  
“So Fenja.”  
“And Menja.”  
“Took up its handle.”  
“Together.”  
“We pushed.”  
“And the wishing stone moved under our hands.”

“We milled gold and silver.”  
“We milled peace and prosperity.”  
“We sang to have the Norns bless our beloved Lord’s peaceful lands.”

“But Fróði thought it wasn’t enough,” Fenja lamented.

“He loved his land much better than two Jötnar slave girls. He wanted more and more and more, as if a man possessed. His coffers could be fuller, his land could be wealthier, his people could be happier! He forgot all about the days he spent with us,” Menja cried.

“Perhaps he never cared for us at all!” Fenja screamed.

“He refused us food.”  
“He refused us rest.”  
“Surely you could grind more. What do giants need of rest?”

“So to this great mill tied.”  
“Fenja and Menja.”  
“Unfortunate sisters.”  
“To grind away their lives until the end of time.”

**

Fróði sat alone in his throne. His hold was awash in wealth and prosperity the likes none had ever seen. Men form far and wide praised him for his fair governance and wisdom.

But Fróði was never happy. Fróði was never satisfied.

Strange how he once foolishly thought happiness was in the laughter and song of his twin concubines. Was it them who had once promised to bear him such sons, that the tales of their heroic deeds would resound throughout the lands?

**

“You could not even break your own fetters, small boy,” softly chanted Fenja in the dead of the night.

“Look how tightly the áss reins you and binds you with his leash of so-called love! The Vanir are fickle, but the Æsir worse, for famous oath-breakers are they. He too will betray you in the end,” hummed Menja as not to wake the runt’s snoring Æsir masters and tired young son.

Loki simply smiled, “Though from my own ropes of servitude I could not shake free5, your chains are made of much more fragile stuff. Here are two slices of the Æsir’s famed apples, brought along our long travels by my Master. Small though they are, they are most potent, and should erase your wariness and restore your strength.”

“Fear you not punishment most severe should your Master discover this theft? We’ve seen a Jötunn slave skinned alive for less.” said Fenja.

Loki scuffed, “My Master is of a most unobservant sort. And if by slim chance he discovered two small slices such as these missing, I could simply claim that runts as we are, my son and I have been made weary by hard travels, and took the apple to ease our ills before they progressed to hinder our masters’ trip.”

“Then that man indeed spoils you both badly. Are you sure dear young Váli is not his? Look at how the girl pillows her head on his arm. But ye of the frost serve only yourselves. What prices would you have us pay, for freedom oft comes at a cost,” asked Menja.

“Oh if only I have a copper each time my son’s heritage is put to the question! I was heavy with Váli before I’ve even met that oaf! The boy is mine and mine alone. As for the price, why it is a small price to pay, well worth your freedom. I only ask that should I ever be in need of aid, that the daughters of Hrúngnir, clan mothers by right and by might, would lend me their kinsmen’s shield arms strong and steel swords glinting bright,” Loki whispered to them.

**

Chains were sometimes fragile indeed, when one knew where to strike.

Grótti was a wishing stone that obeyed its users. It cared not who its owner was, only who managed to move it. It was an artifact of the Jötnar, a people who respected strength.

And it was a stone that could grind out anything one wished for. Anything.

**

Loki urged his Master make haste away from Lejre6. Why dally in a land whose steward was too rude to welcome his guests? So the company bid the giantesses farewell and left Gotland for the next hold.

They were six city states and a year away when Thor heard of the horrors that befell Lejre. From one of the great mills a ghostly army appeared overnight as if out of thin air. Led by two terrible giantess shieldmaidens, the ethereal legion made the rivers of Lejre run red with the blood of men.

After that night of destruction, the army, the giantesses, and strangely, the grindstone in the old mill all disappeared as quickly as they came. Those left alive found the land suddenly barren, rivers blackened, and the gold mines dry. The commoners squabbled for the scant resources left to them, while the lords took up arms against one another for the right to rule what was left of Gotland.

In a fortnight, Peace Fróði was but a remembered dream.

**

  
**NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**

1\. The third realm in question was frozen Jötunheimr. But the border had long been closed, and was now most heavily patrolled.

2\. Loki was sure he’d win. But just in case, he planned the bet so, that no matter Thor wins or loses, the outcome would be desirable to the Prince. The idiot was such a sore loser, that Loki didn’t relish the thought of facing his ire. Of course, since Loki always looked out for number one (himself), both outcomes would be pleasurable for his own person as well7.

3\. Version II. Version I was still buried in the ground somewhere from that encounter with Skrýmir.

4\. It would be lying to say that Thor never used a whip on Loki again. But they did both prefer the riding crop more. It required less space and was easier to swing. Thor could still remember that one time when he swung the whip too wide. It caught onto the antlers of a trophy stag head, ripped it off the bedroom wall, and sent it crashing right into a dressing mirror gifted by his mother. Thor stammered through his explanation to the servants who were left with the cleanup, and Loki wouldn’t stop sniggering at every stag head hanging on the walls (there were a lot of them) for a whole week.

5\. Freedom had nothing on security. Not when one had been passed from man to man, each more creatively cruel than the last.

6\. Þrúðr thought it was mean of them to just leave the pretty ladies there. Their boyfriend sounded like a total dick. But as young as they were then, the sisters did take up arms in the Æsir-Jötnar war. They both still counted as dangerous war criminals and the properties of a man of repute. Thor already went above and beyond by buying more food from the town and gifting it all to the giantesses.

7\. And that was how Loki was gifted with a pair of gold nipple rings, and how Thor became the owner of a length of light chain with little clamps at the ends.  


**


	6. Punk Rock Girl

_**Punk Rock Girl** _

After their departure from the Vanir Lord Fróði’s lands, Thor had decided to stay in the quiet little seaside town they’ve come upon for a few days. It was Þrúðr and Váli’s first time seeing the ocean without a train of diplomats and courtiers dogging the Princess’ heels1, and both children were delighted.

The town was large enough to have a gaggle of youths around Þrúðr’s age. Thor encouraged his daughter to join them in play. While an adventure with her father was grand, and Váli a fine servant and friend, it would do the girl good to enjoy more company of those her own age now and again. Besides, her father also needed some private time to enjoy more mature games with someone his own age, the sort that good children shan’t know about until later, much much later.

Þrúðr quickly subdued the local boys, and ordered them about in pretend-play, scrambling through alleys, climbing up and down trees, and swimming out to the little island near the shore. The cries of seagulls rang overhead, and the spray of ocean waves splashed cool upon wiggly little toes. The towns-children were amazed at the tales she and Váli told, of Jarls and warrior ladies and giants, and a giant who was a warrior lady Jarl.

But when they returned to their room, Váli noticed his friend was quieter than usual. She didn’t loudly recount the day’s exploits like she wont to do. Instead there was a pout on her round face as she kicked at the innocent furnishings as if they had offended her. Váli asked her what troubled his Princess.

Þrúðr pouted even more. She exclaimed that the towns-girls were all laughing at her behind her back, and accused her of her un-ladylike ways. She knew that look on their faces, a look she’s seen ever since she first picked up a toy sword instead of a doll. Sif the Golden Haired was a goddess of war, why couldn’t her daughter be the same?

Váli tried to console his Princess. The girls spoke out of turn. Were some of their mothers not shieldmaidens themselves?

But those shieldmaidens also tended to the hearth and spun the loom. Did Váli he himself not laugh when Þrúðr lit her father’s kitchen on fire and tangled herself in Frigga’s threads? Did Váli think the same of her, a wild barbarian instead of a Princess befitting her stations? Look at how the other girls doted upon him, for being handsome, well-spoken, and more refined than all the boys here.

“Ah, but of all the girls I know, it is Þrúðr that I like the best. All those towns-girls would shun me and run from me, should my true status and heritage be revealed. But Þrúðr you, you have always stood by my side. Besides, what uses have I for flowers that shrieked and fainted at the sight of the sea drake we saw today? I’d rather have the company of brave Þrúðr, who wrestled it down and snapped its spine all by herself2.”

**

  
** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) ** : **  


1\. Þrúðr didn’t even get to skinny dip in an ocean before this trip. Why did the stupid adults worry about her getting her fancy skirt wet, when she intended to leave it (and every other article of clothing) behind on the sand?

2\. Váli was quite taken by the tale his dam told them when they were both very little, of a conqueror3 who wrestled hounds and bears to win fair love’s hand, then went about to travel the world and unite the lands. In this Þrúðr was much superior, for she had been wrestling racoons and wolfs and bears and bilgesnipes and trolls for as long as he could remember. And now not even a drake could stay her way. Loki had scuffed at this, and lamented where oh where had his education plans gone wrong? But Váli thought it was mainly because his dam was reminded of Þrúðr’s father, who preferred to wrestled giants large and small instead (He seemed to wrestle Loki in jest often. Váli hoped it would keep that way, for all the giants he wrestled in earnest were dead). Personally Váli had always found the pieces and bits that Þrúðr pried off her victims to gift him with quite endearing. The new drake tooth necklace was awesome, and the shining scales would make fine powder for his spells.

3\. The hero was Ragnarr Loðbrók of _Ragnars saga Loðbrókar_ fame. He went on to cheat on the love he’s won with two others, and got thrown into a pit of snakes in the end, while his sons surpassed him in deed and fame. 

Váli thought that was par the course for great men. Look how Odin had Skaði and who knew how many others? And Thor had often sought people who were not Loki to play with. Although he had not done so since they’ve started travelling. Most curious. Was it because it was more economical and convenient? Getting to know new playmates was hard when one had to constantly hop from place to place.  



	7. Better Put a Ring on It

_**Better Put a Ring on It** _

Meanwhile, two rooms down in the inn…

“Stop it!” Loki snapped at his master.

“But I thought the whole point was so I could play with them?” Thor was miffed, but moved his hand downward to paw at his slave’s buttocks instead.

“Not so soon after they were put in. The wounds are still new,” Loki rolled his eyes.

“But isn’t gold supposed to be, what did you call it? Hypoallergenic?” Thor looked at the two gold rings decorating Loki’s dark nipples, and reached to touch them again.

Loki slapped the offending hand away, “Oh look, my Master can remember bigger words! They’d better be hypoallergenic. If I find that merchant had mixed in copper or nickel into these rings, he’d soon find his flesh parted from his lying hide.”

“Can I lick them, if I can’t pull on them? Isn’t spittle supposed to be good for wounds?”

“NO!”

**

Thor settled for licking quite a bit southward instead that night, for which Loki had praised him most vocally and returned the favour. But soon, oh soon.

**


	8. Monkeys with Water

_**Monkeys with Water** _

To looks for a specific trout that Þrúðr wished to eat, Thor took the company to Midgardian riverbanks.

“Ah dear Midgard, whose land is bountiful and her people ever growing!” exclaimed Thor.

Behind him, one human pushed a crude raft into the rapids with another sitting upon it, only to have it promptly came apart on a rock, and the unfortunate passenger washed away with the wood, as Loki snickered at their incompetency and panicked screams.

**


	9. Uproar

_**Uproar** _

Across Vanaheimr the company trekked on. One day they stopped at a border town of dubious repute, known by the name of Útgarðar. It had no lord but a council composed of both laymen and learned-men, of craftsmen and scholarly-men, yet it was nevertheless a great town with bustling markets and colourful people. Fertile fields surrounded it, producing great quantities of wheat and potatoes, while various livestock grazed on gentle green hills. It would have been a choice place to live for many, if not for its proximity to Jötunheimr. The combination of the lack of a noble lord’s wise guidance1 and its locale made the town and surrounding hold very attractive to people of the non-law-abiding sort. In this its name of The Outyards was most fittingly justified.

Having had some practice at pretending to be a common man, Thor introduced himself as Donar, and Loki as Loptr, his slave, to disguise themselves. Thor would rather not draw extra attention, both to avoid attracting the flattery and suspicions of local notaries, and the wrath of rogue Jötnar. Giant-slayer though he was, even Thor did not relish the thought of battling them in such a town, not while his young daughter was near.

As was with every town big enough, the company headed to the markets after refreshing briefly at an inn. Loki bargained shrewdly for better prices for their pelts and preserved game meats, as Thor browsed the selection of salt, dried herbs, and better fitting clothes for the children. Both have grown a little since they’ve started this journey, and have found their shirts tight and pantlegs short. But though they have increased in height, in maturity their progresses were doubtful. Look how Þrúðr still egged Váli on as the latter practiced his newly-fashioned slingshot on a pair of squawking ravens.

After a productive afternoon of browsing the wares and selling their own extra games and pelts, Thor and Loki put the children to sleep with full bellies upon soft inn beds, and adjourned with purses heavy with coins to the drinking house next door for some mead and games of chance. 

**

The long hall was filled with the roar and laughter of men, the clink of cups and the clink of dice. Thor breathed in the smell of heavy sweat and rancid mead, and was reminded of how long he had been away from such halls, which he had frequented in his youth. Oh how fatherhood could change a man.

The drinking house was not an establishment of the best repute, and was filled with all walks of society. When one slithering man tried to palm Loki’s fine daggers from his belt, he drew one deftly and pinned the thieving hand to a table with a blade through the palm. Loki then withdrew the dagger and wiped it on the man’s shirt, as the latter howled in pain and curled around his ruined hand.

The tables surrounding them roared with laughter at the man’s misfortune, having picked the wrong target to victimize. One invited the pair to a dice game and hearty drinks, to which Thor readily agreed after boxing the thief’s ears himself.

Loki whispered to his Prince that he could tip the odds in their favour with only a few whispered spells and clever sleights of hand. Thor rejected the offer. Even in games of chance, a son of Asgard should conduct himself with honesty. Yet such tricks were not needed after all, for the Norns smiled upon the golden Prince as ever, and Thor quickly racked up a fortune, as he played and Loki watched. Much to Thor’s chagrin, after he had introduced themselves as master and slave, Loki was excluded from the games. As a possession himself, Loki had nothing to bet. But a few did eye him, hoping his master would include the thrall in his wagers.

One of their contenders for the evening was a wealthy merchant who asked all to call him Värmlandson. He had lost many throws to the man who introduced himself as Donar, and watched as Donar’s shifty-eyed slave Loptr packed away his lost gold and possessions. The merchant huffed and puffed, and shuffled angrily in his seat.

Visibly agitated, Värmlandson threw down more bags of gold and upped his stakes, and called out to Thor to bet against him. The Thunderer rose to the challenge and increased his own stakes to match, not realizing that despite his losses, Värmlandson was still the richer. 

Thor was winning as before at first. But the mead was too sweet and freely flowing, and the god grew over-confident. When he ignored Loki’s sound advice to be satisfied with his winnings lest he tempt fate, the Norns punished him with a bad throw, in which he lost half of his gold. Undeterred and determined to win it all back, Thor called for more throws, only to lose one after another. Soon, the winnings, his own coins, his sword and dagger and axe, and Loki’s gold torc and armbands all fell into Värmlandson’s greedy arms.

Thor slammed his fists upon the table in frustration. What else had he to bet to win back his fortunes? Loki’s steel daggers were a gift made in sincerity, and he would not bet them so. Loki’s other more intimate decorations were for Thor’s eyes and Thor’s eyes alone. He would never bet these either.

While Thor casted about, Värmlandson smiled and pointed to Loki, “Why my dear man, you still have one more possession to bet. Although some may think the slave too old and used, I see such values in him, that I would gladly bet all your lost fortunes and more for his ownership.”

Besides him, Loki stiffened. Thor grabbed his slave’s arm to steady him, and sneered at the merchant.

Värmlandson went on as if he did not notice Thor’s displeasure, “Traveller, do you not know what a strong sorcerer you hold upon a leash? A sorcerer that is wasted on one so untouched by sweet seiðr as you. But what a lovely and fertile bride he would make for me! Oh hold back your sneer, for it does not become one so young and valiant. This boy may be a fine sorcerer, but old Värm also knows a few good tricks. The youngster is a Jötunn in disguise, is he not? I bet I could get strong sons upon him, if only you would wager him,” Þrymr leered at Loki.

Loki all but hissed at the lecherous old merchant. He would never sully his line with the seeds of one such as Värmlandson. Thor grasped his slave’s hand after noticing how, in anger, Loki’s transformation had started to revert, as his fingernails turned dark, and bright blue line and hints of frost started to creep up his pale arms. 

The Thunderer gave the old merchant a most heated warning glare, as electricity crackled, and the smell of ozone filled the inn’s muggy air. Though he had learned to better reign in his temper in recent years, one should remember well to not provoke a god of thunder.

Yet the merchant went on. 

“Come boy, why would you stay with this ill-tempered áss, who surely leaves you unsatisfied? His size must not be very impressive, as is common amongst his puny race. He must also neglect your more masculine needs, such funny notions of ergi these self-appointed gods have! Tell me, how often had he left your cock weeping and unattended, while he fell to sleep after sating his own lust between your legs2?”

“Just think, you could have a real man master you. I can already see in my mind’s eyes how you would wail and struggle as your quim is split wide open upon my giant rod. How you would convulse and shudder as I pump your tiny womb full of my most potent seed. Oh, I would attend to your little cock too, by putting it in a little gold cage. I would then whip you like the fallen slave you are, attend to your ass with my fist, and only allow you to spill once you’ve seen to my every need.” Värmlandson licked his lips and palmed his own trousers, his eyes never leaving Loki’s face3. 

“You must have been cast out by the lord of your hold, to have come into Æsir hands. While you have no choice but to live in disgrace, is it not better to live with your own race?” And with this, the merchant all but revealed that he too was of Jötunn blood.

“Silence giant, lest I cut out your insolent tongue! I would never wager him, least of all to a sick creature like you! And you dare smear my honour and those of my most noble kin? For this grave insult I will end you here!” Thor roared, his face purple with rage.

“And I would cut off what shrivelled meat is in your trousers to match, vile cheat and liar4. This ill-tempered áss is ever favoured by the Norns. For him to have lost so quickly with every throw, you must have played with loaded die.” Loki was cold and calm as the coldest ice as he drew his daggers. Around him frost silently crept over tables and walls.

Thor grabbed a great dining table by its corner, and hefted it at Värmlandson’s head. But before it could make contact, the merchant, the patrons, and the whole drinking house disappeared, leaving the Prince and his slave alone and without their belongings, in a clearing between two buildings.

**

With nowhere to vent his frustrations, Thor took Loki back to the inn and marked the small giant most thoroughly. Loki was his, and Thor would never let him go.

**

The next morning, when asked about the drinking house, the inn-keeper’s wife shook her head. “Oh, that would be old Jarl Þrymr up to his tricks again.”

“Jarl Þrymr?”

“Aye, he and his are magical Jötnar from Värmland, some of the most powerful seiðmaðrs under Laufey’s rule. Theirs is a strange place, for it appears and disappears next to all border towns, with no rhyme or order, yet itself always remains in Jötunheimr. It appears often next to our own land. The Jötnar there barter with our hold, for what we lack they have in plenty through labour or trade, and the other way also true. But that Jarl is a lustful and devious man. He took pleasures in deceiving travellers by taking on various guises. He also fooled many a gamblers by fixing the games to part them from their gold and slaves. Word is that he has in his collections vast riches and many beautiful bed slaves, all won from the hands of unfortunate men. Do not think to confront him now for the wrongs dealt you, for both Jarl and land must long be far away, and goodness knows when they will show again.” The good woman poured Thor’s table another helping of milk to go with their pastries. The poor boys must have been much harassed last night, for Þrymr was as rude as he was greedy. In light of their misfortunes, she was generous enough to give the travellers a discount.

“But Odin had forbidden trade with the Jötnar! Yet there is official trade with this Þrymr?” Thor was surprised at how openly the woman talked of disobedience to his father’s decrees.

“It is good money. As I’ve said, we have what they need, they have what we need, and this way Þrymr leaves us locals out of his schemes. Our hold has been trading with the giants since before Odin came to his throne. Heaven is high and Hliðskjálf faraway. We pay our taxes on time, so what does the High King have to worry? We didn’t see him come a riding when Värmland fell upon us, threatening to wipe the town when we tried to renege on our agreements.” The woman was of the most pragmatic sort, and in the face of her straightforwardness, Thor found he had little else to say on matters of trade. Sex, sleep, and a breakfast of sweets had calmed him much from last night’s rage, but still his anger smouldered. Yet again he was set upon unsuspectingly by giants.

“Should I travel forth, all the while assuming everyone I meet a giant?” Thor slammed his mug down and exclaimed in frustration. Truly, beloved aunt, young thief and hunter, the true Peace of Fróði, now an insolent merchant and all the drinking house patrons! Was the inn also filled with giants in disguise too?

“While I regret failing to see through Þrymr’s disguise while he saw through mine, I must remind you that we do have a high percentage of natural shape-shifters and tricksters amongst the Jötnar race, just as you Æsir are famed for your berserkers. And do you know how much of a pain and waste of resources it is to build giant-sized houses all the time?” Thor’s own giant in disguise quipped as he stirred honey into his own milk. 

“Besides, other than the rare few with ‘special needs’, most people only lie down with someone their own size. We Jötnar are not in the habit of limiting ourselves to our own species, so many have developed the art to change sizes at will. Of all races ours is the most diverse of blood5. Plus the children get to be so very interesting.”

**

“Þrymr is a frost giant himself. Does he care not for his own kind? All throughout the night, he dishonoured and belittled you as a thrall instead of treating you as one of his own,” Thor asked Loki while they organized the possessions they have left.

“I am a thrall. Your thrall in fact, in case all your memories have leaked from that porous brain of yours again. Do you think that Jötunheimr would give away its children at random? Only the weakest and most undesirable ones were let go into Asgard’s tender care. A powerful Jarl like that would care little for the likes of me,” Loki snapped at him, mentions of that insolent letch made his cold blood boil and temper short again.

“I am sorry, Loki, for not being able to avenge you for his insults,” Thor said as he took his companion’s hands in his own and rubbed his long cold fingers.

To which Loki replied, “I am sorry as well. No matter. Maybe this journey will take us to Värmland someday. We’ll see who laughs the last then.”

**

Thor did become more attentive in bed after that, which was a silver-lining in the whole humiliating debacle, Loki thought to himself, before he lost all coherent thoughts and all but sobbed when Thor tentatively took his slave’s cock into his hot mouth for the very first time.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **  
  
1\. And they even had every man and woman vote to select who sits the council! How horrid. How could the common men know enough to select who best to rule them?

2\. Not as often as the old merchant insinuated, but still happened once in every while. Thor of course had denied it most vocally.

3\. Had he lived in another time, on another planet, he would have been that gentleman in the subway trains, trying to get onto a ladies’ only car.

4\. It was not cheating when Loki did it, merely an evening of the odds. But if anyone else did it to him, ohhhh.

5\. The Æsir could proudly claim second place on that list. They were most enthusiastic in helping Jötunheimr expand its gene pool.  
  
**


	10. Fetters

_**Fetters** _

“This is ridiculous, a copper torc for what price?” Thor pointed at the torc in question.

“This is a most fair price!” the pedlar exclaimed. “It is the handiwork of our King Níðuðr’s best artisan slave, Völundr. Look at the intricate patterns, the design! Another merchant would have charged you more. I am giving you a discount here, good sir!”

Thor supposed the craftsmanship was fine. It was what drew him to the piece to begin with. The torc was fashioned as a lifelike copper serpent curved into a loop, with protective runes carved into the space between its coils. It would have looked even more lovely adorning Loki’s slender neck. But with most of his coins now filling a coffer somewhere in Värmland, he could not afford it even at the so-called discount price. The Prince shook his head, resigned, and walked to the next stall for more pressing daily necessities.

Strange how an artisan so fine as this Völundr was not more famous, even if he was a slave. The only Völundr Thor knew was an Álfa prince, last heard lamenting his abandonment by his hot-tempered valkyrja wife1.

**

“I’m back. Did you find everything on your half of the supply list- What are you wearing?” Thor stared at his slave’s neck, dumbfounded.

“A leather collar. How could you not recognize it, when little Váli wears a similar one daily?” Loki looked up from the cooking fire at their little outdoors camp just outside of town.

Thor looked dumbfounded. “Váli still regularly wears his collar? Didn’t he only wear it to shut those tutors’ yattering mouths2?”

Váli waved his hand over his neck. One moment, an old and well-worn collar was around his throat. With another wave, the collar was gone. “Glamour, Master, just like my horns3. All slaves must wear collars as is proper, even if they belong to the Prince, is what Þrúðr’s tutors said.”

“But why?”

“What but why? I have to wear a collar. We can’t afford some fancy torc right now. I had the local leatherworker fashion me one from the scraps he had.” Loki had thought his choice most economical.

“Wasn’t the torc a substitute? An expensive decoration to show the status of the owner. Here, cabbage stew.” Loki thrust a bowl with a spoon in it towards Thor.

Thor took the bowl reflexively and looked most distressed, “You don’t have to wear it. And neither does Váli. The torc was a gift! I didn’t mean for -”

“We do actually. Some holds reinforce the collar rule quite stringently. I’d rather have a collar around my neck over having an axe through my neck any day,” Loki said offhandedly as he passed some grilled frog legs4 to the children.

**

Váli fingered his own collar. He could just as easily spell the reverse, to have a collar appear where none was in reality. But its weight was a reminder for himself. He wasn’t the same as all those Asgardian children5. He wasn’t really Þrúðr’s brother. And he would never accidentally call his Master “Papa” again. All the trouble that brought about really wasn’t worth it. That one-eyed old man was scarier than a bilgesnipe.

**

Loki traced the edge of the thick leather. The idiot was so entertainingly easy to guilt-trip. Served him right for betting away Loki’s torc. Maybe he’ll ask for a tastefully jewel-encrusted one next time, when they have money again6.

**

  
** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) ** :  **  
1\. Ah how fickle fortune is, that the loss of a crown and the gaining of shackles could quickly turn even a prince into a thrall.

2\. Þrúðr’s tutors had taken her to see a play for the very first time. She wanted Váli to come with, but they had to leave him at the door. When she came out, intent on sharing the story she just saw playacted so expertly before her, she was confused by the sight of Váli chained to a post, with a heavy iron ring around his neck and a bored look upon his face.

Her tutors explained to her carefully and slowly that all slaves must wear collars to symbolize their servitude, and it was a handy tool to hook their leashes onto. She had wailed and broke things and threw a large tantrum. Váli had always followed her fine without a leash. But the tutors would not relent.

So with her saved up allowances, Þrúðr bought Váli a soft leather collar, one that Váli kept wearing well into adulthood.

3\. The horns were slightly longer and sharper now. Váli wondered if he should file them down a bit to blunt them, as Þrúðr had poked herself on them more than once. Váli had also wondered if Loki’s would ever grow back. His dam promised they would. It was just that they were not of the highest priority right now. His body had to focus on mending his spine first.

4\. Tastes better than chicken, as the author of this tale would gladly attest.

5\. For example, all the Æsir children Váli knew didn’t eat their own birth sires. But Loki insisted. And the man was juicily delicious.

6\. Meanwhile Loki had managed to convince Thor that the collar was a multipurpose thing, and had quite a bit of fun letting Thor pull on the leash that came with it.  
  
**


	11. Monkeys with Bronze

_**Monkeys with Bronze** _

To forage for easy games, now that they were short on food and weapons and coins, Thor took his little troupe to Midgard again.

“Ah dear Midgard, whose peaceful and fragile people we’ve sworn to protect!” exclaimed Thor.

Behind him, one human bashed another’s skull in with a newly forged bronze hammer, as Loki rolled his eyes.

**


	12. Tree and End of Time

_**Tree and End of Time** _

Instead of an inn, which they could no longer comfortably afford (Thor found out a long time ago that you cannot lodge and dine on proclamations of one’s royalty and godhood alone, lest one be laughed out of the tavern), Thor found a clearing some paces off the road, and the company set up their bedrolls under an ash tree.

The children, bundled up in furs and nestled close to Loki, listened with rapt attention as he pointed to the great branches above and told them of Yggdrasill, that foremost of white ash trees. He signed out the small squirrel that raced across with keen eyes, and recalled Ratatoskr and its gossipy ways. He drew great circles in the air, and in equal weights, named the nine realms, each beautiful and terrible in its own ways. Soon both children were fast asleep. Perhaps great eagles alighted in their dream, or perhaps a grand stag, from whose antlers rivers flowed.

“You have a way with children,” Thor mentioned to the small giant.

“I am well-practiced, my Lord. Váli is not my first child,” Loki answered with a hushed voice, as to not rouse what he had just put to sleep.

Thor was intrigued, “Where are they now? These other children of yours? You’ve never told me of them.”

“Váli is the first one I was allowed to keep. I thank you, Thunderer, for that. My owner at the time of my previous conceptions could not bear the sight of my children, and flung them far across the land, so that I won’t be able to see them until the Very End of Time.” The giant’s eyes turned to the vast leafy canopies with longing.

Thor thought Loki was again too pessimistic. If they were still alive, surly it would not be difficult to find these lost children again. And Thor would glad buy them from whatever men owned them now. What a fool that old owner was. Váli turned out to be a fine boy.

Loki only smiled in that bitter way of his.

**

The children slept soundly, safe between their fathers. Thor snored like the thunder he commanded, his head pillowed on a bundle of skins.

Loki twisted and turned and sweated. Ever since his magic was unbound from all its fetters, he had been plagued by long and vivid dreams, each an epic but tragic saga that faded to fuzzy shadows upon waking.

**


	13. Extra: Murder of Crows

_**Extra: Murder of Crows** _

When Váli was old enough to point at things and babble their names, Loki taught him the names of the big black birds he always saw.

When Váli was old enough to toddle and know the caw of ravens, Loki put a rock into his chubby little hands, and taught him how to let it fly.

When Váli was old enough to aim and throw, Loki had taught him to kill ravens on sight.

**

Loki took out his box of feathers, and added the latest ones his son had brought to him. There were almost enough to make a little feathered cloak for Váli too, he remarked.

**


	14. Extra: Fatherless

_**Extra: Fatherless** _

Thor had caught Loki teaching Váli magic in the bushes on the edge of his estate. He left them be. His slaves should not be denied whatever little private time they’ve managed to steal, or Váli his heritage.

**

Þrúðr saw a man fall into the water the day she went fishing without her father. She was so worried that Váli might have drowned too, for she could not see him. But when she turned around, there Váli was, hold a large cod out for her to see.

**

Thor was glad his daughter was not hurt the afternoon some minor lord drowned in the same river her tutors took her fishing in. He was at home getting pampered by Loki, recovering from an injury sustained while driving off trolls from one of his father’s many holds.

**

Fimafeng cursed when he saw his thrown-away slave. Why was it on the arm of the Crown Prince, for all appearances well-fed and well-groomed? It should have by all rights perished along with the bastard in its womb.

Fimafeng cursed twice when he saw the young princess chase a small boy up to her father, only to have it be picked up by the slave and fussed at.

In a few more years, those small features would stretch and grow out, and the limbs lengthen, cheekbones sharpen. Many would see Fimafeng’s own face in the features of the boy and know his shame.

Fimafeng noted to request an audience with his Prince. Maybe he can convince the man to sell the boy to him for the right price. Then this particular embarrassment could be easily buried in the most literal sense.

**

Þrúðr loved Váli’s new form. She had always wanted a puppy. And Váli’s coat was ever so soft and fuzzy.

**

Thor thought perhaps little Váli was not feeling well. The boy usually ate like a giant despite his small size. But tonight he kept pushing his food around his plate, and mushed the potatoes into all sorts of imaginative shapes.

When asked, Váli replied he wasn’t hungry.

Maybe the boy was entering one of those stages, where he became picky with what he ate.

The next day, Thor had the kitchen prepare sweet semla cakes with extra cream, Váli’s favorite, and was pleased to see the boy polishing off a whole plate, his appetite returned.

**

Váli resolved to never eat such a big salty snack again. It had ruined his dinner.

**

Fimafeng’s handsome face was twisted by surprise and shock, before it was crushed under great red maws.

Like humans, the Æsir were also comprised of around 60% water. It was the best red meat Váli’s ever had.

No wonder some giants would eat the gods in times of war.

**

Thor’s honest face was beaming with happiness as he watched his daughter and young slave smear cream on each other’s noses, and gladly joined in the food fight himself.

Thor was gentle and kind and strong and brave, and trying so, so hard to be a good father.

No wonder some giants would wed the gods in times of peace.

**


	15. For the Love of God 1

_**For the Love of God 1** _

Thor and company came near Svartálfaheimr, the land of the short but industrious ones. When they came to the shore of a great lake called Suttungr’s lake, a rainstorm appeared on their heels. Luckily they have found a cave to shelter in. And not a moment too soon, for just as Thor ducked into the cave’s covers after Loki and the children, sheets of rain and hail stones large as goose eggs pelted down. The company peered out through the mouth of the cave, and saw vegetation flattened and animals scurrying for shelters of their own. Look at how the hares dived for their burrows, the deer dashed for thick foliage, and that pair of ravens huddled close together up in their tree.

Restless with pent up energy, so much so that even Loki’s stories could not hold their attentions, Þrúðr and Váli went deeper into the cave with the intention to explore, for a big cave it was. After much stumbling, they discovered a tunnel, leading deeper towards the mountain’s heart.

Having nothing better to do and drawn by the prospect of exploration, both children and adults set out down the tunnel, led by Loki’s mage light.

**

After twists and turns and turns and twist, the company climbed out to an even bigger cave, twenty times wider and twenty times tall as the one they took shelter in. Deep within the shadows, they could barely make out some huge ominous shape. Loki called forth a multitude of lights, and lit up the cave with a ceiling of stars.

The shadow in the cave was thus revealed, a giant skeleton curled up on its side. On close inspections, Thor noted that it had a broken spine.

“It is so big! Why would it be in this cave? Who had killed it here?” Þrúðr exclaimed as she ran up to it to knock on the impressive bones.

Váli pointed to the skeleton’s outstretched hand. The bones of its fingers reached for the nearest wall. One could almost imagine its owner reaching for it in life. And on the wall was an incomplete tale, scratched out with sharp nails and desperation.

It said:  


“Guess the guy1 never came back. Why such drama over some stupid mead?” Þrúðr said, eyeing Gunnlöð’s last words on the wall.

“A fine example Þrúðr, of how men often place possessions above those they professed to love, and how they would utter an oath with utmost sincerity one moment, only to break it in the next. A young lady like yourself best beware,” Loki cautioned. He then turned to give the bones of his distant kin one last look, “Well, there is a fool born every day. And just as quickly they die.”

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **

1\. Three guesses who that guy was.

**


	16. Good Hosts, Good Neighbours

_**Good Hosts, Good Neighbours** _

Leaving Gunnlöð’s bones to their dark resting place, the company made their way around the lake, past a forest, and into a young settlement. The people living in it had recently moved there, as evident by the few simple homes, newly erected fences, and modest animal pens. The men of the settlement tilled the fields, and the women welcomed the travellers who introduced themselves as a small merchant family and servants, for they brought games and wares1 to trade and news from afar.

When evening came, Thor and company sat down with the men for drinks. Despite the beauty and fertility2 of the land, the men looked haggard and stressed.

“What troubles you so, good farmers? Does the land not treat you well?” Thor asked their hosts.

“Nay good traveller, the land is bountiful and rich. It is something else that troubles us all,” one man said.

“Aye, it is something else. Know you not that a giant lives over the hills?” another added.

“Does it harass your settlement? Steal your livestock? Threaten your wives and children?” Thor asked. If the giant had abused these people, he would gladly put a permanent stop to it.

The head settler’s wife pipped in, “That’s just the thing. It steals no goats or sheep, and leaves us womenfolk and the young one well alone. But some stew or baking or cuts of game would always appear on the steps of our farms every Friggsday. The pot or bread or meat so large, that they can only be the right size for a giant!”

“But what does it mean? Some children have eaten the stew before their mothers could stop them, and are still fine to this day. So the foods are not poisoned. In fact they are the best cooking we’ve ever tasted. Does the giant wish to fatten us up for better eating later?” the head settler wringed his hands.

Thor was intrigued. A giant who left gifts of food on his mother’s very own day? But from his dealings he knew the Jötnar to be a tricky folk, and the motive of this one most unclear. He resolved to go seek out this strange giant on the morrow.

**

The settlers were kind enough to provide two rooms for their guests. Thor took the opportunity to quietly seek Loki out. It had been a while since he last enjoyed the comfort and succor of his frost giant. Although Loki had stifled all the sounds he made with a pillow, the shakings of his body and the spasms of his most intimate muscles told Thor that he had missed the Thunderer as well.

**

The next day, Thor, Loki, and the children headed over the hill, despite the settlers’ proclamations that they headed to their doom.

After hacking and ducking about an overgrown path, the company saw smoke from a cooking fire drifting up the sky. Using it as a beacon, they soon found themselves in a clearing in front of a mountain. In the clearing were a hen house and a pig pen and stables for larger livestock, and a vegetable garden and an herb garden and dried fish hanging off a line.

Behind this scene of utmost domesticity was the mouth of a giant cave covered by an equally giant iron door. The cooking smoke they saw came out from a stone chimney on top of the mountain.

Thor looked at Loki. Loki looked back. Thor shrugged and went up to the door, and with his great solid fist gave it three hard knocks, “Master of the house, we are travellers with tales from the road, and would ask a drink of water from you.”

That was when the company heard someone clearing his throat from behind them. They turned around, and saw an Asgardian man coming out of one of the sheds, holding a hoe in one hand, and the chubby hand of a little toddling boy in another.

“Hail travellers! What rare guests you are. Come, if it is a drink you wish for, I have both mead and water to share. Come rest your feet, and let us hear your tales, for around these remote parts they are worth more than gold,” the man welcomed them.

Loki could sense no magic from the man, and signaled this to Thor and the children. In fact, seiðr had not touched him at all. This was a man who hid behind no disguise or glamour. Look, the little horn bumps on the toddler’s little nose were shown as clear as day, never mind the bright blue colour his skin so openly displayed.

Still not letting down their guard, the company followed the man, who introduced himself as Agnar, into his cave from a small side door.

**

“Ah, settle down and try this mead, good sir. I will fetch some milk for the children. Sorry the house is such a mess. This is what happens when you have so many children, and the wife, though lovely, is not the tidiest of creatures,” Agnar rubbed the back of his head apologetically. 

He then pointed at the little toddler trying to climb over Váli’s knees, “And that is my youngest. All the others have gone out fishing with their dam.”

Þrúðr and Váli were delighted to have someone smaller and so pliant to play with. They passed the toddler between them, and goaded the poor boy with a piece of candied fruit.

The master of the house came back with honey and milk, which Þrúðr and Váli accepted with thanks.

Agnar sat himself down, “You must have travelled far and seen much with open minds, to not have questioned the appearance of my child.”

“A half Jötunn,” Thor remarked. He still remembered when Váli’s horns were just like that. “And so a frost giant is your spouse? How come you to be with him? Living alone in this cave?” The man looked happy enough, but Thor still did not rule out the slim chance that he was held against his will. After all, frost giants had frequently kidnapped Æsir maidens. Why Freya alone had made quite the few round trips, getting kidnapped every other month.

“Oh I am here not through threats or coercion!” Agnar exclaimed, as if sensing the direction of his guest’s thoughts. “I know tales of kidnappings are popular amongst us Asgardian folks, but who would kidnap one such as me?”

Thor had to concede, that the man, while comely of face, was no fairer than the average áss. And he had counted at least twelve pairs of shoes of different sizes sitting by the door. Agnar must have enjoyed the company of his giant very much.

“Fret not, good host, for I am no stranger to the company of giants,” Thor said, gesturing to Loki and Váli, who dropped their disguises in unison.

“Oh! Is the boy both of yours?” their host was visibly startled.

“NO,” Loki snapped at Agnar, having heard this question far too many times. He stretched out a hand and gestured at Thor, who sighed and pulled a single piece of copper from his own pockets, and put it into the Jötunn’s palm. Loki then flipped the coin into an already quite full purse.

Thor shook his head at the small giant, and turned back to the man, “But this place is far from home and quite remote. Were you a traveller like us? And why would your spouse, for it must have been him, leave food at the little settlement over the hills?”

“Ah,” Agnar took a sip of his own brew, “It was a, ah, boating accident of sorts. I was lost on the ocean for ninety years. At the end of my strength, thinking I would die, I prayed to AllMother Frigga to deliver me. She must have heard my prayers, for the waves shipwrecked me to this shore, and the river carried me to this cave. The good Jötunn here took me in and nursed me back to health.”

“In repayment he asked for company, for he grew up orphaned by the war and without friends, and was quite alone3. One thing led to another, and here I am still. It is a comfortable life - oh, my spouse and other children are back!” The man abandoned his chair in favour of rushing to the door.

All around Thor and company, the ground shook and the furniture rattled, as the marching steps of many feet came nearer and nearer.

“Sweetling we are home!” A great bellow sounded before the iron door was thrown open with a resounding clang.

And standing at the entrance of the cave was a great giant with rhino-like horns on the bridge of his large nose, and ten little ones of different shapes and sizes in a row behind it. They sniffed at the air and peered inside.

“Ohh wayfarers. How rare. Good thing we’ve caught a whale. Else we may not be able to offer our guests a proper meal,” the largest giant rumbled.

**

“So why leave food at the settlement?” Thor asked as he tore into a piece of fatty whale tongue.

“Oh, they looked so lost, and their first winter here was not good to them. What kind of idiots forget to save feed for their livestock4? But my dam always taught me to be a good neighbour whilst he lived. You are supposed to share food with your neighbours he said,” the Jötunn said after chugging from his drinking horn carved from a dragon tooth.

“And I know hunger. I could not bear to see so many suffer the same. We picked Friggsday to drop off the food as a tribute to the AllMother, for she had protected me and brought us together. It became some of a tradition then, to share our extra foods with the settlement,” added Agnar.

**

“You sure it does not want to fatten us up before feasting upon our flesh?” one farmhand asked.

“Nay my good man, on my honour as the Crown Prince of Asgard, I vouch for him. This is a creature most generous and kind! He’d saved our fellow Asgardian, master Agnar’s life, and gave him many fine children besides!” Thor said.

“And I prefer white meat,” said the giant.

So all breathed a sigh of relief, and shared in a most scrumptious feast of birds and fishes. The giant was glad that his little hill was now even more lively, and his little Agnarsons would have companions to play with. The settlers were glad that the giant was actually quite a good neighbour to have, as he revealed himself to be somewhat of a healer, and the very reason why there were no bandits or dangerous beasts about these parts5.

**

“Agnar, Agnar…” Thor mumbled to himself.

“What is it, I am trying to sleep here,” Loki turned over and looked at his Master with bleary eyes.

“Yes! No wonder I thought the name familiar!” Instead of quieting down, Thor sat up and smacked his fist into an open palm in sudden revelation.

“Good master Agnar shares name with young King Agnar Geirröthson, and his namesake and uncle Agnar Hrauthungson! The youth rules a seaside country under my father’s guidance.”

“Ah, the son of that idiot who had an accident with his own sword6? Wasn’t Geirröth the second son, ascended to the throne after his older brother was lost at sea? Why, does my Master think the father of a brood of half-giants may have some relation with late crown prince Agnar?” Loki recalled the family as well.

“Aye, a most unfortunate accident for poor Geirröth! But nay, there is no way that the prince and our Agnar are the same. Prince Agnar was said to be a stoic and responsible man. Had the prince been alive, he would have surely returned to claim his throne and duties, instead of dallying with a giant in a cave. Agnar is simply a popular name.” Having come to such conclusions, Thor snuggled down for bed, and pulled a protesting frost giant into his arms to ward off the heat7. These parts sure were hot and humid. No wonder Agnar also favoured his giant so.

**

“So you are leaving for sure? I guess I will never see you again,” the giant looked at the man he’d rescued forlornly. Going back to the company of his own left hand would be difficult and unfulfilling for a long time. At least he still had his cave to talk to. Ah his dear dam and sire, who turned their bodies into the mountain and cave to shelter their lost little child even in death.

“Yes, this is farewell, gentle giant. I must return to my father’s side. Knowing that a snake like my brother coiled in his halls worries me to no ends. I would ask you to accompany me, but all Jötnar in Asgard are either enslaved or dead.” The young crown prince hefted his travelling bag higher on his shoulders. It was such a shock, after being lost at sea with his beloved younger brother, rescued and fostered for a winter by a fisherman and his kindly wife, then struggling back to his father’s shores, only to be pushed back into the ocean’s receding tides by his own little brother with a curse.

“May the giants take you, Agnar! Why should you be the heir, and I the spare!”

Funny how Geirröth’s curse came true. Ironic how if not for the giant, Agnar would have surely perished. He will expose his brother for his cowardice and deceit, and avenge the murder attempt on his own life.

When the crown prince neared his country’s borders though, he heard the most disturbing news. His father King Hrauthung had passed from grief over losing his eldest son, in his place sat the surviving prince Geirröth. And the people were praising their new king, for his reforms had revitalized the land.

To return now would be to bring conflict and strife upon his father’s beloved kingdom, and make tens of thousands suffer just to avenge the wrongs visited upon one man. Dejected, Agnar wandered the lands a vagabond. Surprisingly, his feet carried him back to the giant.

**

“You came back, small Asgardian.” The giant looked pleased.

“You are with child.” Agnar stared dumbly at the giant’s extended blue belly.

“Hmm yes. Your child. I didn’t want you to go, but you’ve made up your mind then. Thank you for leaving a child with me to keep me company. Will you go away again?”

“No. And I imagine I would stay here for quite a long time.” Now Agnar had even less reason to return to his kingdom. He was a responsible man who took responsibilities.

**

“Do you think the Thunderer realized who you were?” the giant asked his husband.

“I hope not. Even if he did, I have no interest in taking the throne from my nephew. He is doing a passing job with my father’s kingdom, and I do not think I could do better,” said the once crown prince and son of King Hrauthung. But Agnar was a simple hermit and happy husband and father now, and he wouldn’t exchange that for anything.

**

_“ Othin and Frigg sat in Hlithskjolf and looked over all the worlds. Othin said: "Seest thou Agnar, thy foster ling, how he begets children with a giantess in the cave? But Geirröth, my fosterling, is a king, and now rules over his land." Frigg said: "He is so miserly that he tortures his guests if he thinks that too many of them come to him.’”  
\- Grímnismál, Poetic Edda_

**

Agnar’s eldest and Loki woke early to prepare a breakfast of porridge with eggs and ground meat.

“I wonder what my father’s kingdom is like, and all the lands beyond these mountains and across the sea,” the youth said to his newest friend, who recognized his father and knew so many things.

“They are not quite safe to travel, for a half-Jötunn as young as yourself,” Loki replied.

“My dam said it is all His fault! That we are away from home. That my father cannot return to his. That my grandsire and dam are dead!” The youth threw down his wooden ladle, his face full of frustration. 

“The AllFather.”

“The AllFather!”

Both sons of Jötunheimr said in unison.

“My father always told us to be grateful to Frigga, for he later found out she was the fisherwoman who fostered him. Then the fisherman who whispered ideas in my uncle’s ears must have been Odin! The one-eyed old man then put that usurper’s whelp on the throne, a puppet strung to his strings! The seat of the kingdom rightfully belongs to my father, and the next in line should have been me!” the young man seethed, not realizing how much he resembled his uncle as his face twisted in jealousy and hate.

But Loki recognized an ambitious man when he saw one, “Ah but young prince, men who are able and willing make themselves Kings.”

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **  
  
1\. They would have made very decent professional pedlars, and Loki was a natural-born salesman. But alas, both had higher callings.

2\. Thor was a fertility god despite Loki’s oft expressed doubts. He knew these things. (The problem must have been with Loki. The Jötunn’s body was still recovering from stress and not ready to bear another child, yeah.)

3\. The exact words were: “I heard you Æsir are good for the fucking and good for the eating. So, which form of repayment would you prefer?” Agnar thought that since the giant had mentioned his preference for white meat, he must have been too shy to ask for a night of passion outright.

4\. A man named Flóki Vilgerðarson, no relation to Loki Laufeyson. He went all the way to Iceland, and named it thus, and forgot to save any hay for the winter and had a terrible time.

5\. Agnar and his family had eaten the dangerous beasts (all three of them, how many dangerous mystical beasts did you think there were???) to extinction. And before that, the lonely giant had made snacks of all the bandits (too crunchy).

6\. See Grímnismál for Geirröth’s story. The man was a terrible host to travellers, and probably would have been a bad neighbour too. And even though Odin had raised him up, Odin also had no reservations about putting him down again.

7\. Had Asgard invented air conditioners, Thor would be the sort to have it on full blast with the windows open and a thick blanket about him. Good thing that a Jötunn was almost as good as AC, and far surpassed an AC in other usages.  
  
**


	17. For the Love of God 2

_**For the Love of God 2** _

Thor and company passed a great township, in which a lively celebration was in full swing.

The locals pulled the travellers to their tables, and invited them to their merrymakings. Of feast of mole pigs and mushrooms and roots they had, and songs from bards and skalds and sweet-voiced maids they had, and mead and ale from an artfully crafted fountain flowed freely1.

“What is this feast in celebration of? The seasons? Some heroic act of valour?” Thor asked.

“Nay, it is an occasion more joyous than both. The daughter of the Lord of this hill is to wed today! And the dashing groom is here to meet his blushing bride,” a local replied, clinking his mug with the town’s tallest guest.

“Ah, I would like to meet this Lord, our host, in thanks for such a great feast he’d thrown, and the generosity his people had shown toward strangers,” Thor enthused.

**

Thor and company were directed to the Dvergar Lord, old Billingr, who sat merrily in his hall and looked upon the newly-weds. For his daughter he had picked a most suitable match, a sturdy young Dvergar noble with gold mines rich from over the hills. Look at how the new couple glowed.

Thor went to introduce himself by his own name true, and gave as gifts first of a fine white bear pelt, stripped from a beast he slew in a village they’ve passed. It had harried the livestock and ate two men. Secondly he gave of a jewelry box enchanted by Loki, spelled so that necklaces and rings placed into it each night would be polished to a shine the next morning.

The Lord was most pleased with these gifts, for a white bear with fur so pure was quite rare, and a jewelry box that could clean and polish most useful. He stroked his bushy beard and remarked thus, “Some say that the Æsir are a rude and ungrateful bunch, but I see that this is most slanderous falsehood. For here stands a humble and wholesome man, the son of that foremost áss, a boy far surpassing his father in manners and diplomacy.”

Thor thought the manner in which the Dvergar Lord praised him a bit strange, but was still flattered to be compared with his father. “Know you my King father, oh gracious host?”

“Aye. But let us not talk of the old gallows god. Today is a joyful day. Join us and feast some more, Asa-Thor.” So saying, the old Dvergr bent down and poured his guest another tankard of ale.

**

It was later that an old serving maid confided to Loki in gossip, that ages ago a lone stranger came to their doors, shrouded in a hood and blind in one eye. Their Lord took pity on the man, and gave him quarters and food and drinks as one would an honoured guest.

But what did Lord Billingr find in thanks instead? The very same guest trying to sneak into his young daughter’s maiden chambers! The girl was his pride and joy, a diamond, an emerald in her father’s eyes. So the Lord craftily hid his girl away, and tied a vicious bitch to the bedpost in her place2. 

“Such an ungrateful cur the man is. That a bitch would be the only suitable match for him!” he proclaimed.

The bitch struggled loose when the man entered the room, and chased his sorry hide out the doors, through the halls, and over the hills.

It was later that Billingr learned that the traveller was old Odin, disguised to walk the realms nine. Instead of fearing reprisal from the powerful High King, Billingr spat into the dirt, “He has a Vanir war bride most devoted and pure, yet still thought to steal my daughter, my most polished jewel, from my hands?”

"Now it was such a surprise to see that old áss’ son a young man so handsome and fine, with good etiquettes and a small daughter most energetic and fair. Look at the little darling’s honey curls, finer than soft gold and brighter it shined. Is the well-mannered dark young man also his, begotten with a mother of unfortunate lower birth3? No? Oh, so very sorry. But you all were so close and familiar with one another."

**

Thor who had the story recounted to him felt his face glow hot and red with shame, shocked again by his father’s dalliances away from home.

Then he and Loki both recalled the spry young bride, who had a full red beard larger than the hair on her head. She was wide as a barrel and unmoveable as granite, and had with one drunken punch laid flat a full-grown man thrice her height. For a Dvergar maiden she was definitely most desirable.

“Your father has most diverse and heavy taste, seeking to take a beauty such as Billingr’s daughter’s maidenhood,” Loki nudged his Prince. “I wonder. I wonder what the Lady Frigga would have said. Are you sure dear Prince that there are no other Odinsons running about the nine4?”

Thor simply dropped his face down to the table, after pouring a generous helping of mead into his morning porridge.

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) ** :  **  
  
1\. They had to go back to good old mead barrels after two drunkards tried to swim in it. And that is why we can’t have nice things.

2\. Billingr’s daughter was lucky, for her father was wise. Another who was called Rindr was unlucky, for his father was dull and dimwitted. Too bad Thor never ventured into deep Jötnar country with his small company, else he might have passed two gravestones, and learned that Váli was a popular name for halfling children unwillingly planted but willingly bore for the Jötnar race. And his travel story would have one chapter more, titled “For the Love of God 3”.

3\. And Loki was one copper richer, again.

4\. Loki would have ribbed his Prince about his apparent lack of fertility despite his fertility god status, except that Thor had decreed for every insinuation upon his potency, whether they be from others5 or Loki’s own lying mouth, Loki must give Thor a copper. Thinking back to how Thor had lost their coppers and more besides to that old Þrymr, Loki would rather hold on to their coppers himself, thank you very much.

5\. For example:

“Oh it must be so nice to be a princess. You must get everything you want6.” Agnar’s third child said to Þrúðr, as he (she? Þrúðr wasn’t sure) looked at Þrúðr’s fine cloak and brooch longingly.

Þrúðr chewed on another handful of berries and remarked, “Well, not everything. I asked for another baby brother, but father never delivered.”

“Truly? Your father had known his Loki for how long now? And still no child? You sure the Crown Prince of Asgard is a fertility god? My parents have tried all sorts of contraceptives after my fifth brother, and look at all the siblings I have now!” The young half giant was shocked.

Just behind the bushes, Thor turned around and walked away, with an expression of utmost dignity on his face and a sniggering Loki on his heels.

6\. The half giant found out later that even a princess cannot get everything (s)he wanted. Agnar had taught his children the importance of duty, and it was a lesson that followed them all their lives.  
  
**


	18. Weapon Upgrade

_**Weapon Upgrade** _

The company finally arrived at the heart of Svartálfaheimr, where the Dvergar miners dug deep, and the Dvergar smiths forged wonders.

One evening, after a vigorous rump involving a silk handkerchief, Loki slipped away into the night markets, as Thor slumbered the slumber of the sated and content.

**

Loki passed stores and stalls and merchants hawking their wares, and came to a great forge with a long line in front of it, stretching all the way down the street and around two corners1.

The Jötunn sauntered casually towards the start of the line, and charmed2 a young dark elf into trading with him his place.

Soon Loki found himself in the store and before the Sons of Ivaldi.

Ivaldison the Older looked up and up, “A Jötunn. I didn’t know your people still had the money for commissions. Bold, yet stupid and ill-prepared, to stand against the Æsir horde so.”

Ivaldison the Second scuffed, “Nay brother, worse, a Jötunn slave. Where are yer horns boy? Decorating yer master’s walls?”

Ivaldison the Youngest held out his hands to placate his brothers, “Now now brothers, let the slave speak his piece. Maybe he has something to trade us with, stolen from his Æsir master’s halls, which oft overflowed with gold gathered from all the realms. Now slave, what have you for us? And what would you have in return? There is nothing we cannot build, for the Sons of Ivaldi are we.”

Loki bowed low to the three best of smiths, “A request I have not, and from my master’s halls I have stolen not. But even a slave as myself have heard of the most famous of Dvergar Sons, and have come to feast my eyes upon them. But I come also with a bet to propose. It is said that there is nothing you cannot build, yet I have with me such a treasure, that I would bet even you cannot make one similar and have it surpass the original!”

Loki then took out his daggers, “These are daggers gifted by my master, the finest possessions entrusted to me. Should I lose, I would gladly part with them.”

The three smiths broke out into laughter. These blades were indeed fine, and would fetch good coins, coins that would soon be in their hands.

“You and these daggers are as good as parted. What so-called treasure could you have, that you would dare make such an uneven bet?” Ivaldison the Older said to the slave.

“Oh, a great treasure, and I would bet my master’s daggers that you won’t be able to duplicate its splendour.” So saying, Loki took a little pouch out of his pocket, and carefully shook out its contents. The Dvergar gasped upon seeing what spilled forth, it was the finest lock of golden hair in all the worlds, soft and silky, with an inner shine that outshone the purest gold.

“Have you ever seen hair as fine as this? The soft locks of a most beautiful and strong goddess!” Loki held out the hair to the Ivaldisons.

Proud as the Sons of Ivaldi were, they loved fine things more, and Þrúðr’s hair was fine indeed. They had not seen hair so fine since glimpsing the goddess Sif from long ago. But now both goddess and hair have went to Valhalla above on a funeral pyre. The golden strands before them now reminded them most strongly of her, and like her hair, these locks looked to be difficult to replicate let alone surpass. Yet their pride would not give up. The three smiths gathered, whispered amongst themselves, and came to a conclusion.

Ivaldison the Older sent one of their apprentices to close up shop for the day.

Ivaldison the Second turned to Loki, “What would ye wish for should ye win, not that it will happen.”

Loki bowed to the smiths again, “I would wish for whatever it is that my dear master craftsmen would build in this bet, for I am sure it will be a thing of wonder.” 

His vanity somewhat pacified, the Second turned to the youngest, and they both went to prepare their materials. Before he disappeared into the smithy at the back, the Second still could not resist one last shot, “Prepare to lose, boy!” The Dvergr shook his fist.

Loki only smiled most innocently.

**

Sons of Ivaldi laboured fast, and came out of the smith with a wig made of threads of softly spun gold. Locals and visitors from all around gathered to act as judges. Oh how the golden wig dazzled, how fine the metal threads. But yet how the original hair shone, how silky and infused with vitality and life.

In the end people could not decide. Who was to say which was the finer?

So Loki conceded defeat, admitting that he had definitely met the best of smiths, true craftsmen of the highest skills and virtues. And the Ivaldisons, praised as Dvergar of class, felt it was only right that they admit a tie instead.

To Loki they graciously gifted the wig, and in return took the daggers and hair as keepsakes, to remember this most interesting day by.

**

Loki bagged the golden wig. He went out the shop, down the street, around the corner, and into the shadows. He walked and walked, until he reached an even deeper part of town, and area not frequented by non-native visitors. He walked and walked some more, until he stood at the entrance of a non-descript smithy, with a plaque of iron-cast sword and shield hanging above its door.

The owners of this shop were not well-known across the nine, yet they were who Loki was really looking for. The brothers Brokkr and Eitri were better smiths than even the Ivaldisons, but they were lazy for ones of their craft, and ornery so that they took commissions from none who were not Dvergar-born. So across the nine, folks spoke of the crafts of Ivaldi, but not of Brokkr and Eitri. Yet the two were prideful folk, and were irked by not being recognized as the best smiths in the land. Thus they relished every chance that came their way, in which they could prove themselves better than their rivals.

Loki squared his shoulders and knocked on the door. This was a bet he planned to lose, and was not looking forward for the payment he had to relinquish.

**

When the smiths took the needle to Loki’s lips with glee, Loki felt strangely off despite his experience with this particular torture. The hands that held his head in place felt wrong. They were too clammy with too long joints, strong in the wielding of tools of creation instead of instruments of war.

But soon his screams were sealed and swallowed.

**

It took forever for the old seamstress to pick out the thread, and the process had cost Loki a pretty penny besides. But all in all, it was a fruitful night.

**

When Thor woke next late morning, there was a small hammer lying beside him.

“A tool for my Lord, to replace his lost weapons,” said Loki as he sorted through his morning purchases to prepare breakfast.

“Where did you find this?” Thor hefted the hammer. It was heavy for its size, and the unusually short handle moulded to his grip as if custom made.

“One of the many Dvergar smiths about the morning market bargained it to me.”

That was when Thor noticed the empty space on Loki’s belt. “What happened to the daggers I gave you?”

“I traded them for the hammer, Mjölnir. Were the blades not mine, to do with as I wish? I still have my magic. But for my Lord to better protect all of us, he needs a most suitable weapon rather than the scraps he is forced to use. For the health of the children and my own well-being, I’d rather not have a repeat of that incident from a few days past, with the fire drake that bit your sword clearly in two. Think of it as a late thank you gift for all those years ago,” Loki looked at him.

Oh, Thor thought. Was it not on this day many moons ago that we’ve first met3? How quickly time flew.

**

When Thor nibbled Loki’s lips while thrusting slowly into his Jötunn’s soft folds that eve, he swore he tasted blood and felt his own lips lick past jagged open wounds the moment his rod brushed past the deep spot that always made Loki gasp and lose composure.

But the taste and texture were quickly gone, and Thor’s own composure quickly lost, as the Jötunn’s muscles gripped around him and spasmed sweetly so.

**

Now you are finally aptly armed again, Thunderer. A few more scars were but a small price to pay, for the best weapon from the best smiths that no money could buy.

**

Thor was puzzled when he asked Loki to pass him his new hammer, only for the Jötunn’s strength to fail.

“Why can’t you lift Mjölnir anymore? Were you not the one who brought it back to me, a gift fit for a god king?”

Loki shrugged, “She had felt the touch of your hand, the touch of one who is truly worthy, and henceforth refused to serve those of lesser worth. This hammer was never mine to lift.”

Mjölnir was a fine hammer despite her size, short handle, and unassuming looks4, and her natural vibrations and faint humming of power quickly became a comfort to Thor.

But at the same time, Thor thought the hammer a bit stupid. How could it not see the worth in Loki?

**

Stupid as the hammer could be in her pickiness, Thor found Mjölnir to be great. She fit his hand and obeyed his will much better than any sword or axe or spear he’s wielded before.

Soon Mjölnir became an extension of Thor, a magical weapon that heeded his calls and flew him into the sky.

“How did you know to ask for a hammer from the smiths? I’ve never used one before,” Thor asked Loki one day, when they were both in the air, carried by the momentum of Mjölnir.

“Thor would not be complete without Mjölnir,” Loki replied cryptically. He had thought to ask for a sword or axe (Thor had not the finesse for spears and daggers), but when he opened his mouth, he remembered a hammer from his dreams, small and faithful and meant only for Thor.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **  
  
1\. Think of an iPhone release, and then multiple that line by some number, dear readers.

2\. Literally. The poor soul came to, wondering why he was at the end of the line, when he woke before the crow of the cock two mornings before to camp out the Sons of Ivaldi’s shop.

3\. Now dear readers, while Thor has many virtues that we would do well to emulate, we should not be like him in this. Mark down your anniversaries early in your calendars, and prepare your gifts well in advance. 

4\. The mighty Thor needed no giant weapons to overcompensate! As a wise man once said, it was the motion of the ocean, not the size of the boat. And Loki had shown Thor how to cox the hammer into a bigger size, should the need arise, and how to shrink it even smaller, when he needed to put his weapon away.  
  
**


	19. Monkeys with Religion

_**Monkeys with Religion** _

Thus armed, Thor went to Midgard to test his hammer.

The Midgardians, as most sentient beings do, had long discovered religion to explain the natural and supernatural both. Despite their short lives, the tales they told lasted long, and the visits paid by the Æsir were embellished and put to songs1. They even had a crude carving of Thor in a special place in their shrine to all the gods.

Loki was amused that they counted him amongst the gods, but also at the same time miffed because for all the sex he’d willingly and unwillingly had, he was never mounted by a dumb horse, despite one of his previous owners’ best efforts2.

When they left, the priests added the image of a hammer to Thor’s shrine, enlarged that which lay between the carving’s legs, and declared that the trickster Loki often walked the earth in the guise of a woman.

Loki was livid that a rather pleasantly heated evening was ruined by gawking humans.

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) ** :  **  
  
1\. Who knew Heimdallr was such a saucy fellow? To have bedded husband and wife both at the same time in so many households, and begotten children with each mortal woman he’d lain with. No wonder he always looked so relaxed after each leave of duty, Thor remarked.

2\. The dogs and the boa constrictor were bad enough. The Jötunn horse Svaðilfari would have killed him for sure. And that was before Loki realized while the realm of the dead had no doors, it had enough windows to climb back through, if one was careful.  
  
**


	20. Loki´s Song (aka Loki on a Boat and Thor’s Fishing Adventures)

_**Loki´s Song (aka Loki on a Boat and Thor’s Fishing Adventures)** _

The company passed a large settlers’ farmstead with lush green fields stretching as far as the eye could see, dotted with round woolly sheep and nimble footed goats.

The farmstead was quite well-to-do. Despite the harsh land, the crops were rich and strong, the flocks fat and healthy, and the pantries well-stocked. The owner of the farm was generous despite his wealth, and showed the wayfarers, who introduced themselves as travelling companions, great hospitality. 

In order to properly thank their host, Thor went to the forest to hunt for games with which to make a grand evening feast.

Loki stayed behind while the children went to play in the fields with the farmer’s son. From where he was seated, Loki could see the three climbing onto the backs of great goats, charging up and down the hills with them, all the while pretending they were riding noble steeds. There were perfectly serviceable donkeys right next to the goats. Oh the imagination of children. Loki shook his head and remembered his own childhood pretend plays.

Having made sure that the young ones were perfectly safe and fine at entertaining themselves, Loki directed his attentions to their host. Most men would see the farm’s prosperity and assume the farmer a happy man, but Loki noticed behind formality and cordiality the signs of a man who tried to keep his troubles private.

So when he turned to talk with the farmer, Loki started with a question, “What troubles you, good host? Your crops are fine, and your house large and spacious. Though your wife has passed, she left you a most able and filial son of good health. Yet for a man so fortunate, you possess an air of glumness about you.”

When Loki mentioned the lost wife, the man’s face crumpled. And when the son was brought up, his eyes turned watery, and his lips trembled. “It is my son. It is my son! My poor boy! Because of his own father’s follies, he is now promised to a giant!” the man sobbed, no longer able to hold onto a happier veneer.

“Oh it cannot be that bad, to be wed to a giant,” Loki was almost offended on his kinsman’s behalf.

The farmer was horrified, “Not to wed! To eat!”

“Oh never mind then. Carry on weeping,” Loki waved his hand. So the local giant decided on that second-best use of the Æsir. Loki had heard the gods were good tasting, and his sons had confirmed it so. Personally Loki thought the Æsir strange and bitter in flavour, and even Thor’s taste was only passable.

But the farmer latched onto Loki, now that the matter has been brought up, “Please, traveller. You have walked many lands and seen many things, maybe you could help me? Your companion said you knew some magic. You must be able to do something that a poor farmer could not. I beseech you! I would do whatever you ask and give you whatever you wish, if only you could preserve my son!”

Annoyed but knowing that the company would be stuck lodging at the farm for a few days, Loki answered, “Oh fine, quit your begging, peasant. I will think of some way to resolve this without bloodshed. In return, for I do nothing for free, I want bagged seeds from every produce grown by your farm.”

The farmer quickly agreed, for the secrets of the magical seeds he’d snuck away from Jötunheimr during his soldiering days1 were useless, if he was left alone without son and heir to inherit them.

Loki first bid the farmer provide him with a large boat. He drilled a sizeable hole in the bottom, plugged it with a wooden stopper, and charmed it to look like seamless wood again. He then carefully folded up the boat as if paper, and put it into his pants’ pocket. He then bid the farmer release all his fish from the conservatory into the lake.

Loki had the farmer hide the boy inside one of his wine cellars2, and left the farm with naught but a bag and some spices.

Loki walked off the beaten path and went into thick bushes. When he came out, he had shed his Æsir skin, glamoured for himself smooth horns in addition to uninjured lips, and was dressed as a wild Jötunn would. In his hand he held a bag from which rich smells of roasted meat wafted. Another Loki with fair skin strolled back to the farm to sit most visibly upon a porch.

**

On the edge of the waters Loki found the giant, hailed him, and told him of travellers to the farmer’s house.

“A seiðmaðr and his companions have lodged at the farm, and the sorcerer transformed the farmer’s boy into a fish egg amongst the roe of a halibut, and released it into the lake with other fish, thinking to hide him from you, my friend,” Loki said. 

The giant used his sight to look upon the farm, and found the fish conservatory empty, and a thin bookish man sitting in the shade of the farmer’s house. “I will rip apart that faithless farmer and his guests, and set fire to all he owns! How dare he hides away what is mine? I had won the boy fair and square in a bet, and had looked forward to that young Æsir’s tender flesh for so long!” the giant roared.

“Oh but killing the father still would not give you back the son. Here I have in my possession a boat, and I do know something of fishes. How about we set out to the lake and fish up the son. Then you may do what you wish with the father at your leisure,” Loki suggested, unfolding the boat upon the waters.

The giant thought the little runt most reasonable, and shrank down to row out to the lake with the runt in his wooden boat.

**

When the sun hung high at midday, the boat had travelled far from shore. The two giants had fished up many halibuts, but cutting them open had yielded no boy. 

Loki asked the giant to be patient, and took out some fruits and a well-roasted goose stuffed with mushrooms and potatoes from his bag. He waved the bird at the giant, wafted its succulent scent towards his nose, and offered to share lunch with him. The giant, made hungry by his anticipation of eating the farmer’s son, greedily tore into the fowl, while Loki bit into a fruit.

As the giant gulped down the last of the bird, Loki reached in front of himself and pulled out the plug.

When the giant realized the boat was sinking, and him with it, Loki had already leapt into the water, turned himself into a slippery salmon, and swam away.

The goose, mushrooms, potatoes and all were heavy boulders, craftily transformed by Loki. With a wiggle of his tail, the stones were returned to their true forms. The giant, now with such a burden in his stomach, and not the best of swimmers, sank down, down, down, all the way to the bottom of the great lake with the leaking boat, never to be seen again.

**  


Meanwhile Thor was also on a boat, one without a hole carved into its bottom. He was fishing. One by one he pulled up great fishes and eels, and took down waterfowls with flung stones in between catches. As his boat was near full, he made for land, but his fishing rod was tugged again.

Thor pulled on the rod, but it was most heavy indeed. Using the leftover oxen head from his lunch as bait turned out to be a good idea after all! The fish at its end must have been of a monstrous size, for it tugged Thor, the boat, and its load summarily across the waters. But Thor would not relent. A fish so mighty would be an impressive catch, and the Odinson was intent on adding it to his trophies and boasts.

So down the river the boat sped, until Thor could not see the bank where he first disembarked.

So down the river he was dragged, until the Thunderer saw before him the great ocean.

Suddenly the boat came to a lurching stop, so fast that Thor was almost toppled into the water. He pulled up his fishing rod easily, and saw that the line was cut, and both bait and hook were gone, never mind the elusive great fish.

Thor cast the rod down in anger and turned to grab his oars to row himself back up the river again. When he turned around, he saw at the end of his boat a slim young man. The youth’s sinuous long body was soaking wet with water, yet he did not look cold. His hair had the wave of seaweeds, and his eyes were yellow with a reptilian glint.

The boy bowed down deep to the god in greeting, “I came here from afar to thank you, Asa-Thor, for what I presently cannot say.” 

“Who are you, and how came you onto my boat?” Thor demanded of the weird young man.

“Of my kennings I could recount many, but the one who bore me calls me Jör. I suppose you may call me the same. I simply came to see the great Thunderer with my own eyes, but dare not dally long.” With that, the boy hefted up a snakeskin bag and slipped into the waters. A great long shadow darkened the sea below, yet it was quick to disappear.

That was when Thor realized belatedly that the best half of his fishes and fowls and land games were bagged by the little thief. He cursed his own carelessness, and then cursed Jötunheimr for her trickster sons. For he was sure this boy also hailed from there.

Overhead, two ravens circled and cawed with the seagulls.

**

“Dada, I thought you said no bloodshed?” Váli asked after learning the giant’s watery fate.

“And no blood was shed. Drowning drew no blood,” Loki looked at his son.

“Dada!”

“Well, I was originally going to recommend to the fool that instead of instant gratification, he should look to the future and milk the farmer for the long run, by sparing the boy and taking a periodic contribution of goats and fish instead. The farmer would gladly trade his son’s life for some minor loss of property, and his stock would have much more meat than a scrawny child. Better yet, he should have married the boy. That way the land would be half his, and his children guaranteed a fine inheritance,” Loki imparted wisdom and experience to his son3.

“Why did you drown him them?” Váli asked.

“He pinched my ass.”

That was when Thor marched back to the farm, his broad back bowed by the games he carried.

Loki frowned at him, “You are horribly late. How are we to start dinner without you and your haul?”

Thor wiped sweat from his brows, “Complain not little quarrelsome Jötunn. Do you know how long it took me to find the year old buck you wanted to eat? Ages. And I’ve met the strangest boy while fishing. He stole the buck by the way. I hope you like elk.”

**

When Thor heard the tale of how Loki had tricked the giant and saved their host’s son, he was pleasantly surprised4, and commended his Jötunn for doing a kind deed.

Loki remarked that the post-war peace pact brought no peace to the people. The giants cast away their unwanted and weak to be slaves, but the numbers were far from enough to satisfy the pact. So many children were lost, and great resentment fostered and grew as creeping glaciers do in icy hearts. 

Though most of the war was fought on Midgard, its start and finish were in the gods and giants’ home worlds. The desolation made people bold and desperate. And where there were bustling trade and celebrated unions of couples from different realms, now goods once easily obtained were hard to come by, and children birthed between two realms were shunned or worse snuffed out instead of cherished and loved. The isolation and memories of war made people suspicious, fearful, and unkind. The weak, no matter which realm they hailed from, were doubly victimized and abused. Like the farmer, who fell prey to a cruel giant. And like Loki, who suffered many poor masters.

**

The farmer was vastly grateful, and broke out all his finest cheeses and mead to feast his son’s savior and company.

Now he could marry the boy safely to that little girl from across the lake, the farmer remarked. He’d met her parents while trading goods at the local Thing, and they were well-to-do craftsmen folks. Perhaps they hailed from Vanaheimr? And the two youngsters had played so well together5.

 

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **  
  
1\. His commander had ordered them to set torch to the fields and the blue beasts who toiled away in them 6. But the grains were full and golden, fruits sweet and ripe, and vegetables green and crisp. And the soldier, who hailed from a line of farmers, could not bear to see it all destroyed. So from each type of plant he snuck some seeds, to be planted should he survive long enough to return to his farming ways.

2\. Better stash the boy somewhere safe. Loki could have transformed him into a fish egg, but then what if it got eaten by other beasts in the waters?

3\. Váli later wondered if his dam was talking about Thor somehow, as the boy slowly chewed on a choice piece of roasted elk.

4\. Thor knew Loki to be a creature of many qualities, but had thought altruism was not amongst them. How good to see his assumptions proven wrong!

5\. What the farmer didn’t know was that the “girl” and his/her family also hailed from Jötunheimr. They’d simply thought the farmer’s son good for that best use of the Æsir. It’d be a waste to eat him and his father, not after their little child had taken a bit of a shine to the littler áss. Since they were stuck in foreign lands, best marry to better hide themselves, before they were discovered and dragged off to gods knew where.

6\. The old soldier could still hear their screams sometimes in his dreams. He knew those giants were farmers just like him. But could anyone still hear his own father’s screams, as blue soldiers (who might have been farmers once) laid their village to frozen waste?  
  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot help but wonder how many other stories like Loka Táttur were lost to time. They would have been fun stories to read too. ):


	21. Arranged Marriages Are So Last Year, But I Went To Check Out the Girl My Dad Told Me About Anyway

_**Arranged Marriages Are So Last Year, But I Went To Check Out the Girl My Dad Told Me About Anyway** _

Loki retired early to bed, claiming weariness and irritability caused by his menses, and kicked Thor out for he preferred the company of the children instead that of his Master for the evening. Just as well, Þrúðr and Váli had both complained repeatedly about how Loki had not slept with them or told bedtime stories for weeks.

Thor went down to the bar attached to their inn, ceding Loki’s company to the children. While poring over the menu for its selection of drinks, Thor saw a scrawny youth with a worried face, who was clearly trying to drown his troubles in mead. Thinking back to his own youth, and how Sif and his friends would distract and console him when the Prince did the same, Thor went to sit down next to the boy. Strange how he had a long-handled spade leaning against his bar chair. Youth these days carried around the most outlandish things for fashion1.

“Barkeep, a pint of what he is having please! And a plate of mølje plus a plate of potatoes for this goodly young man!” Thor bellowed at the host.

The barkeep slid a full mug at Thor, and bade one of the maids go fetch the dishes.

“Do I know you, my good sir?” The youth looked up blearily at Thor, a tad unnerved for he had rarely seen a man so massive.

“Nay, but as they say, all who travel far from home should be friendly companions to one another. I saw you and remembered my own youth and all its melancholies. What ills you boy? Could it be matters of the heart?” Thor scooped a large helping of the fish paste onto his own plate, glad to see food so quickly served.

“Somewhat yes. And much thanks for the food,” the young man said dejectedly, and forked half-heartedly at the baked potatoes.

“Mention none of it, for it is reward in itself to share food and drinks with good company. And somewhat yes on the matter of love, you said?” Thor asked.

“Aye. And here is a tale that’s been told a thousand times. My good mother had passed away. My father, discontent with loneliness, sought another woman fairer and younger to be his bride. She professed to love my father, and at first she had also treated me well. But as she grew round with her own child, she grew colder and colder to me,” the youth lamented.

Thor thought he was lucky then, that the company he’d found in his loneliness treated his daughter most fair. But even now, he dared not lie to himself about love. A thrall’s love for his master was a limited thing, and the fleeting looks in Loki’s eyes whenever they alighted upon his equally enslaved Jötnar kin were cold as glacier and darker than the void. And Váli, sweet Váli, the child who had once rode on his shoulders and called him father, had pulled him aside to ask after the slaying of Skrýmir, in that serious way of his, if Master would one day kill him and Loki too, for Thor was a most famous slayer of giants. And if they were to be slain, could Master please lie to Þrúðr, for he would not be there to wipe her tears away. It had taken Thor much effort to explain to the boy that Váli was not Skrýmir, and tease a shy smile from the boy’s small serious face again.

With his thoughts suddenly turning darker, Thor subconsciously took a deep draught of his own brew. He would never treat his two Jötnar as other slaver owners do, and would never break his oaths and promises to them.

Before Thor’s thought could go too far down that gloomy path, the youth’s distressed words pulled Thor from his own troubles, “And now my half-brother is born. And now my new mother hates me so. She whispered vile words in my father’s ears, and he bade me to go forth and woo the hand of a frost giant from Jötunheimr, rambling about how I would not make an oath-breaker of my own sire!”

“So I went to the grave of my dear mother, and recalled her from Hel’s gray domains to seek wise counsel. She chanted nine spells of protection for me, yet did nothing to save me from this doomed quest. I do not understand! Surely I walk to my death!”

“But yet your father and mother you still obey. So you march to Jötunheimr?” Thor asked.

“Aye,” the youth whimpered.

“Then join us! We go to Álfheimr, but the town we transition at is most close to Jötunheimr. While I do not know why you were set upon this quest, but let me assure you, some giants do make the sweetest of lovers, once their icy armors have been thawed by the heat of passion. But cross them not, for their memories are long, and vengeance most terrible,” Thor offered.

The youth stared open-mouthed at his new travelling companion, clearly thinking him mad, “But the size difference! And their perverse sexes that people whisper about! Would it not make one ergi?”

“Do not be so prudish for one so young! As you said, they have two sexes, one of which is most fair, so you commit no shame in lying with one2. Also know you not of the giants’ magic? They shrink themselves to lay with men. There are also some naturally of smaller size. And let me tell you of the wondrous hill giants,” Thor pulled the young man nearer, ready to give him a most important education in the biology of giants.

**

Loki was less than pleased when he found he had to babysit yet another whelp, but conceded when Thor gave him a most beseeching look. And when he heard the youth was to woo a frost giant, he sniggered with glee, and went to great lengths to speak of the Jötnar’s famous withering touch, and their gigantic icicle swords and ice shard encrusted flesh caverns of the euphemistic kind.

Oh you didn’t know women bled blood and giants bled rime3 by the cycle of the moon? Are you a virgin still? And were you not told giant halflings often turned out most monstrous and deformed? With such an attitude towards giants, maybe your own son, not raised right by a biased father, would eat you in your sleep!

The young man whimpered, clutched his spade tight, and wondered why kind master Donar kept the company of such a man. 

But then he saw how Loptr treated Donar’s child as his own (why couldn’t his new mother?), and how both men touched each other casually without thinking, here a gentle hand on the back of the neck, there a grasp on the forearm, shoulders leaning together and knees bumping lightly, and understood.

If only he could find that same someone for himself.

**

“Your father must be an unusual áss, to command you to woo the hand of a frost giant in marriage so soon after the war.”

“It is strange, is it not? But my father never cared for the war. He left the god realm at the first rumours of unrest, and repeatedly told me that I was lucky to be born of an uncommonly long pregnancy, to have not seen the war with my own eyes.”

“Your father dodged conscription?”

“Aye, and he was proud of it too. Were you in the war Master Donar? You must have been still in your boyhood then! My father said it was unfair, to make the unwilling fight. And even worse, to force the young to smear their hands with blood, when they could barely comprehend why.”

**

“Regrettably we must part, and your quest your own, young man,” Thor clasped the youth by his shoulder.

“And here are some provisions to last you the road,” said Loki, passing the young traveller a bag with a smirk. “Do let us know how it goes. Jötnar courtship is simple and brief4, but Jötnar wedding nights are long. Taking both and the distance to your final destination into account, adding some time allowances for the arctic carrier goose, and we should be located right about, hmm let’s see… Here! If you are not eaten on sight, you can write to the address of this Álfheimr inn5.”

The youth took the bag with thanks, only for Loki to hand him another much heavier bag.

“And here is a gift for you to give your future in-law to gain his good graces, a bag of magical seeds of all kinds, that would grow in even the harshest climes. An old farmer was kind enough to bequest them to me,” Loki patted the young man on his arm.

So the youth bid both men and their children good-bye, and thanked them for their company, advice, and generous gifts. He straightened his shoulders, and steeled himself for Jötunheimr.

**

A full turning of the seasons and several more moons later, Thor received a letter addressed to him, posted from Gastropnir, Jötunheimr, by the hands of some most enterprising Álfar couriers.

And the letter read:

I, Svipdag, son of Solbjart the necromancer  
Son of Gróa the völva  
Spouse of fair seiðmaðr Menglöð  
Son-in-law to the Frost Lord Fjölsviðr  
Greet ye master Donar, master Loptr, and your two children

Here I give sincere thanks for your company, kindness, and encouraging words  
For you shall not find a happier man in all the nine  
Now that I have been united with my promised love  
And in ~~his~~ her6 halls finally found my place

Should your travels ever take you to this beautiful winter’s land  
Do rest your feet at Gastropnir’s halls a while  
Wet your parched throats with our sweet mead  
Sate your hunger with our elk and fish  
For you will always be welcome here

**

“I thought you’d never come,” said Menglöð to Svipdag while they shared a breakfast of egg and fish fillets in bed. They should get out of it sometime. Next week maybe.

“I never knew of our betrothal, and only wish father had told me sooner.” Svipdag ran his hand along his bride/groom’s curved horns and through his/her long dark hair.

“I’ve always thought it the drunken whimsies of my own sire. The old one was always so worried, that his halfling runt would never marry, so small was its stature and so slim its bones. So when an Æsir necromancer passed our halls, and revealed that he was soon to have a son, my sire put the question to him. They must both have been quite drunk, for the Æsir took a look at me, still suckling in the cradle then, and pronounced me favoured by seiðr and passingly fair, a good fit for his future heir.”

“I was told of you ever since I was young, and teased by all the others as Menglöð the undesirable one, that I was promised to the son of a great necromancer, and will birth great children of magic by him. But the war broke out, and you never came. Eventually even my father gave up hope. Who would throw his child to an enemy and monster?” sighed Menglöð, thinking back to less happy times.

“I was born quite late, an unusual birth near the end of the war. Our family never cared much for the fighting. My father may be many things, but an oath-breaker he is not. And here I am,” Menglöð’s new husband said.

“To perform your filial duties?”

“Nay, to claim my bride,” so said Svipdag as he embraced the tiny Jötunn again. He’d have to thank his father and mother, for finding and pushing him to such a match. And maybe even his stepmother too, for reminding his forgetful father of his promise made long ago.

**

“How did you know the boy would be successful? I had almost offered to accompany him if not for your insistence of the contrary, so nervous and alone had he looked,” Thor asked Loki, as they both read the letter.

“Theirs is a match somewhat well-known amongst the frost giants. Our going would have complicated matters,” Loki hummed.

“Well-known?”

“Old toothless Fjölsviðr and his half-breed witchling Menglöð. He is quite the runt amongst runts. Slighter than me even, the last time I’ve seen him. Fjölsviðr wouldn’t shut up about how he’s managed to find Menglöð a match in the son of Solbjart the death-walker.”

“Death-walker?!” Thor exclaimed.

“It says right on this letter, N-E-C-R-O-M-A-N-C-E-R. And you said the boy raised his mother from the grave for advice! Did words go into one ear and out the other without registering in between? You are unfamiliar with seiðr, but I could see about that boy the stagnant air of one who dines with Hel’s silent court. Even if he is not who I think he is, he’d do fine in Jötunheimr. Good thing you didn’t tell him your true identity. He might have attacked you in a panic. Odin has little love for his kind. With a frost giant witch he’d be most well-matched.” Loki folded the letter and pocketed it.

**

The large bag of seeds was sorted, sewn, and grew well. Their shoots covered the fields and flowers ripened to fruits, as Menglöð’s own stomach swelled7.

Fjölsviðr marveled at how he would live to see his grandchild born. Even more, he marveled at how the traveller his son-in-law met had come by lost Jötnar art. Few knew how to duplicate Jörð’s magical crops, not after the one favoured by the earth left the land in the name of love, his fields and apprentices burnt down to ashes one by one by the accursed Æsir brothers Vili and Vé during the war.

**

“Who calls at my door?” Bellowed the old yet no less terrifying giant.

“A traveller and suitor, directed here by his father!” The youth yelled back, firm in his resolve. It was either do or die here. Giants don’t often eat people on sight, giants don’t often eat people on sight. And I can always summon draugar, yes draugar and skeletons an- an- and fleshreavers, the young man repeated to himself to bolster his own courage and tightened the grip on his spade.

“From where do you come?”

“From the land of sun bright and sky blue and fair! Now what is the name of this great hall?”

“Gastropnir is it name, and a powerful seiðmaðr sits its throne! From whom do you hail?”

“A necromancer most renowned and a völva wise! Now who is it that sits alone the throne?”

“Fair Menglöð sits the throne. Awaiting the promised one! What is it that men call you by?”

“Men call me by many things, of my kennings for days I could recount! Now to whose hand is Menglöð promised to?”

“The hand of the whelp of dark Solbjart. But oath-breaker is he of the Æsir-blood, that his son never showed his face!”

“You do him wrong in calling good Solbjart an oath-breaker, for I am Svipdag his son, and here I am,” the youth said to the giant, his heart fluttering with strange anticipation in his thin chest.

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **

1\. It was actually for digging. Sometimes the undead would need an extra helping hand. It was hard work, clawing ones way to the surface after a deep and long slumber. Oh, and since it was lean and long in shape, it was also a serviceable staff to weave magic and smack people with.

2\. It’s not gay if it's a ~~n elf~~ frost giant.

3\. Or tree sap, slush, water, mud, gravel, lava, etc. Pick your giant. Or just plain blood. Loki doth love to troll.

4\. _“You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals / So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel”_ \- Bloodhound Gang 

5\. Loki, seiðmaðr, nurse maid, home tutor, and now travel-planner and post master extraordinaire.

6\. “Why must you have no special gendered third person pronouns? All this gender confusion!” Svipdag complained to his husband/wife as he penned the letter.

“What do you need it for? And you weren’t very confused about my genders last night when we took each other in turn,” Menglöð chided as he/she passed his/her spouse another blotting paper for the pen.

7\. Svipdag was pleased to receive a return letter and the gift of a pair of matching brooches from masters Donar and Loptr, congratulating him on his marriage. A few days later, a magpie landed on Menglöð’s window sill, and the small one became silent and thoughtful the whole day long.

**


	22. Lord of Plenty and the Overflowing Keg Party

_**Lord of Plenty and the Overflowing Keg Party** _

Thor and company wandered around Álfheimr, home of the Álfar, teething gift of Vanir god Freyr. In the mid of winter, when a gentle layer of pristine snow had blanketed the land in white, they came to the prosperous Kingdom of Swithiod, domain of gentle king Fjölnir, sole heir of Freyr. Favoured by his father and steady in his rule, Fjölnir was hailed as the Lord of Plenty by his subjects.

Thor introduced themselves as Donar and Loptr, sworn brothers, and the company was warmly received into the city’s inns for the elder brother’s warm smile, the younger brother’s wit, and their bags clinking of coins1.

**

“Your sworn brother? Truly?” Loki raised an eyebrow at Thor, once they reached the privacy of their room.

“Aye. While the fact remains that you are a Jötunn by birth and a thrall by circumstance, I have lost much of my bias towards the former, and long ceased to view you as the latter. On this journey where we are each ourselves rather than our titles, you have ever stood by me and mine and been true as a shield-brother to me. It would be wrong to introduce you otherwise, Brother,” Thor clasped Loki’s arm and looked into his eyes.

Loki’s breath hitched in surprise2, and he tried to look away. But Thor gently grabbed his chin and tilted up his head, and leaned down to lick at familiar scarred lips.

**

As per customs, the boy king hosted the three days long festival marking the passing of midwinter’s night, and invited all his subjects who dwelled in the city and surrounding farms and any guests visiting his domain.

Thor was very taken with Swithiod’s honeyed and spiced mead, for it was a drink with rich flavours not found in Asgardian brews. And the king’s brews were the finest of all, that the Thunderer downed mugs and tankards in great draughts, and drank many under the table.

But immortal as he was, Thor was a god of Thunder, not of drinking, so eventually even his good senses have floated away. Sensing a chance for mischief, Loki whispered to his Master (Brother? Nay, brother when it suited the man’s fancy, but Master in truth) that they should sneak into the winery cellars, and see if their host kept the secret recipe for Swithiod mead within. And the townspeople had boasted that king Fjölnir had mead barrels large enough for men to swim in. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see?

Not fully in control of himself and his whims and vices, Thor thought it a grand idea, and both snuck away from the feast. A few carousing servants, some drunken guards, and a concealment spell later, they were in the royal mead reserves.

**

The cellar was indeed a very impressive sight, with mead barrels and bottles stacked on shelves upon shelves, as high as the tall ceiling, and as far as the eyes could see. One could almost get lost amidst them. Loki liberated from their shelves select bottles of the finest vintages and shared their contents with Thor. They fumbled and laughed like schoolboys, and toppled their way around the rooms, Thor opening random doors and Loki rearranging the furniture with seiðr.

One door yielded a room with an even loftier ceiling.

“Behold Loki, the great barrels of mead!” Thor pulled on his Jötunn’s arm.

“Why indeed!” Loki’s eyes lit up at the sight. He stumbled into the room, gesturing for Thor to follow.

Loki swayed close to one barrel, and touched it in wonder, “They must have felled many great trees, to make containers so big. Did they brew the mead in here? Or was it in some other location, to be emptied and stored under the king’s halls?”

Thor was uninterested in matters of deforestation or brewery arts, but the delicious-looking Jötunn before him was most captivating. He pushed Loki against the barrel, and mouthed at his long neck, as his hands fumbled to unlace deerskin trousers.

Fuzzily Loki looked up, and a brilliant thought struck the trickster. Would it not be the chance of a lifetime, to remove the top of this barrel, and couple in that most famous Swithiod mead? And would it not be hilarious, to magic the top back on after? Think of all the fools who would drink from this barrel, all the while unknowing3!

Loki whispered his latest plot into Thor’s ears, and many other filthy promises besides. The Thunderer, too far gone with drinks and lust, also thought it an idea most enticing. So together both climbed the ladder up to the top of the barrel.

Thor looked around from his new high vantage point, and noted all the barrels around them. The quantity of mead here truly put his father’s own collection to shame. Perhaps he could convince the young king to part with a barrel or two? And oh, there was the brewing vat. Someone forgot to put the lid back on. And hey, other people seemed to have the same idea as them, for look, there was a man tittering on the edge of the vat.

Thor was shaken partly from his stupor however, when the man toppled into the giant vat, and didn’t come back up.

Loki must have seen the same, for he doubled over with laughter, “What a fool, not only was he upon the wrong vat for drinks, he just had to take such an ungraceful dive! Oh I wonder how that batch of mead would come out.”

Thor found nothing mirthful about the situation. He raced across the room, jumping from barrel to barrel. A man was about to lose his life!

Yet when he stopped at the metal vat, he was at a loss. The liquid was unclear and foamy, and the container deep. The man must have sunk to the very bottom, yet how was he to find him in time, in something the size of a small lake? And that Jötunn, that trickster, he was of no help, still laughing from across the room!

Thor turned his head and yelled, “Loki, cease thy laughter! This is a matter most grave!”

Loki simply giggled some more. “Oh what a night, to be entertained by not one fool but two! Simply do what you do best, your idiot.” 

Thor cursed himself for his addled state, leapt down to the floor, and raised Mjölnir against the brewing vat. One. Two. On the third strike, the metal gave way to a giant hole, and half-brewed mead flowed out in a deluge. Thor swam against the current and dragged the unconscious man, who was washed out with the mead, up to one of the higher platforms.

Thor pushed the man’s chest to make him spit out the mead in his lungs, and feared he was too late, for the winter was cold4 and the tub deep. It was only then that Loki sauntered over, magicked away the man’s wet clothes, and started a small mage fire to provide warmth.

The Norns must have decreed it not yet the day for the unfortunate man to expire, for he coughed violently and blinked opened his eyes, and it was then that Thor noticed he was none other than the Swithiod king5.

** 

King Fjölnir was quite embarrassed, but ever grateful for the timely rescue. Upon learning Thor’s true identity, he berated himself for slighting such a high guest, gave the Crown Prince the highest seat amongst his tables, and invited his company to weather the remainder of winter in his halls.

**

The Crown Prince of Asgard, his young Princess, and their retinue were given new rooms in the king’s halls. It was a luxury, after sleeping with rocks for mattress and the sky for blanket, to have bath and bed befit the station of a Prince again.

There was even a cabinet filled with bottles, of meads and wines and spirits from all over the lands. And in the bedside drawer, Thor was delighted to find fragrant oils, soft towels, and spare smallclothes. Their young host was ever observant and gracious, yet Loki was most rude in finding merriment at the poor boy’s misfortunes. For his unkind act, Thor decided that his Jötunn should be most firmly disciplined to show him the errors of his ways.

Making sure the door was locked, Thor selected a tall thin bottle, and gave his Jötunn’s lithe form and pert behind a smoldering look. Come to think of it, they’ve never finished what they started the night of the midwinter’s feast. Oh how he would enjoy this evening. And he would make it a memorable one for Loki too6.

**

Loki languished in bed for two days after, and responded to Þrúðr’s pleas for exploration and play by burrowing his whole head under the blankets with a moan.

Meanwhile Thor brought food to their bed and kneaded Loki’s aching waist, all the while wearing a preening look upon his face.

**

Before the first bloom of apple blossoms upon previously bare branches, Thor and company stayed in Fjölnir’s halls, honoured guests from Asgard.

Fjölnir was particularly polite to Loki despite the latter’s heritage and initial rudeness, and Thor saw him giving sweets to Váli and offering to play with the boy. Both slaves were even given chairs behind their masters at the dining table. Thor may have viewed Loki as close as a brother (and something more) and Váli almost a son, but he had not expected such kindness from others towards his giants. Maybe it was the manner of those who lived far from Asgard, to show courtesy and hospitality even to the children of Jötunheimr. But Thor remembered how Fjölnir’s sire7, bright Freyr, fought most bravely alongside himself during the Æsir- Jötnar war, striking down one giant after another with his magic sword.

When he mentioned the lack of animosity to Loki, Loki told him that it was another tale, for another time8. Laufey wasn’t the only giant of note who gave away an un-favoured child. Gymir the wintry one also foisted his runt off upon the Æsir and their Vanir allies.

**

One evening at a sizeable party of Fjölnir’s, just before the young king held his Thing, Thor, quite deep into his cups, had argued most vehemently with another visiting statesman from the outer provinces of Swithiod, that the Jötnar and Æsir were not very different, and put to examples of the many very agreeable Jötnar and disagreeable Æsir he’s met on his travels. Why, they were even compatible enough to sire many goodly children together!

The statesman, thinking Thor was mocking him for the bastards he’d sired with a favoured slave, each more capable than his legitimate heir, flushed red from neck to crown and stormed off in a huff. Such a commotion Thor’s loud comments had made, and louder the roaring laughter at the statesman’s open secret9, that no man noticed how Fjölnir listened attentively from his throne and smiled.

On the rafters, a raven ruffled its feathers, while another glared and cawed.

**

Fjölnir was soft, indecisive, and a troubled soul. He loved his father, but loved his mother in equal sums. If placed upon a scale, even he was not sure which side would be the heavier.

Yet he longed for his mother, and like his maternal forefathers, his memory was sure and long. In his mind he could still feel Gerðr’s soft arms and faintly hear sweet winter’s lullaby songs.

Loki wondered what the whelp king would be willing to pay, if Loki be the one to break apart the fences that held in the eldest Gymirson, and return Fjölnir’s dam to the young Swithiod King. Gerðr, while not well, was still very much alive, as told by the twitter10 of a noisy bird that fluttered by.

**

Freyr had hired the best gardeners with silver and gold to tend to his gardens and yards, and had imported exotic plants from far and wide to fill them. The skalds sang that the bountiful gardens of the shining god were marvels to behold, yet how unfortunate that he hoarded their beauty as a dragon would gold, and allowed no visitors. Alas, alas. While men lamented that they may never set foot in the wondrous gardens of Freyr, this arrangement suited the birds just fine, as many made this place of few men but many trees and seeds and fruits home.

No one noticed when a pair of magpies made a nest on the branches outside of a barred window. Not even the ravens and crows.

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) ** :  **  
  
1\. But mostly for the coins.

2\. Loki had thought this a dream at first, for sometimes dream-Thor would address him thus, both in anger and in longing.

3\. It would be somewhat like pissing in the public swimming pool, only worse. But Loki does what he wants.

4\. The cold was actually not an issue at all. The frigid midwinter was to the young king a most temperate clime.

5\. And it was in the same moment, that Thor realized his shirt was still atop the mead barrel they’d climbed, his own trousers had its laces undone, and Loki was most dishevelled with swollen lips and very visible bite marks on his neck. Fjölnir stared and stared, realized he was naked himself, yelped in alarm, tried to cover his dignity in vain, and stared some more.

6\. In truth, Thor had not many chances to “discipline” his Jötunn since they’d hit the road, more for lack of proper housing and facilities than for lack of mischief on Loki’s part or lack of desire from Thor. And they’ve moved from place to place so quickly, that Loki had to be well enough to walk most mornings. But since Fjölnir had invited them to stay… Now, if we had cameras in Thor’s room, we might see this:

Thor slowly worked the well-slicked wine bottle in and out of Loki’s equally well-slicked ass, as the frost giant thrashed under the Thunderer’s heavy arm, wails reduce to muffled cries behind a gag rolled from his own shirt.

Once the bottle was more than half-way in, Thor left it in position and tilted his head to admire the tightly stretched ring of dark flesh around the pretty red glass. He flicked the exposed part of the bottle playfully, watched the pale body underneath him shudder anew, then focused his attention on the other bits of dark flesh on Loki’s chest, while leaving the two organs Loki most wished for him to touch alone and weeping.

Large calloused hands reached up and slowly palmed the gold ornaments on pert nipples, pulling on the rings and rolling the brown nubs between strong fingers. Thor lamented privately that milk came forth from them no more, but he bent down to suck and bite at first one then the other greedily anyway.

Satisfied that the nipples were hard and swollen, Thor lifted himself up and walked to the corner of the room to rifle through his bags, leaving Loki unattended and cursing the Thunderer from behind his gag. With a triumphant exclamation, Thor pulled out what he was looking for, and strode back to bed.

He untangled the thin gold chain and clipped the ends first to one nipple ring, then to another, and with a finger, lifted the chain. Loki’s chest rose with it, trying in vain to relief the pull. Before Loki could adjust to the tugging of his poor sensitive nipples, Thor sent a sharp burst of electricity into the chain and carefully slammed the bottle deeper into Loki’s ass, straight to that hidden and sensitive gland concealed within. Loki’s back arced clear off the bed as tears swelled in his eyes, a surprised scream escaped from behind the gag, and a stream of seed shot from his red straining cock. 

Thor diligently worked the bottle in Loki’s ass and played with the chain and clamps, stopping once in a while to smack Loki’s increasingly reddening behind and whispering what a good toy and obedient little brother the Jötunn was, but not once touching him elsewhere. Loki’s muffled cries soon turned into incoherent begging as his cock turned half hard again and the feminine folds below leaked and pleaded for attention, his skin flicked from Æsir to Jötnar and back again.

Thor finally took pity when Loki’s moans turned into sobs, and could hold his illusions and transformation11 no more, and with one sure stroke plunged himself deep between wet purple petals12…

… Or perhaps we will see nothing but static, as the cameras are smashed with a hammer or zapped by magic. Ah, but since there were no cameras, we would never know for sure now, would we?

7\. Thor tried to recall who Freyr’s wife was, for the boy Fjölnir did not look like a son of his sister Freyja’s. But try as he might, he could not put a name to the lady. Yet he was sure Freyr would not put a bastard to one of his kingdoms’ thrones, would he? 

8\. Shameless selfplug! (http://archiveofourown.org/works/903233)

9\. “What a fool!”

“Aye, to even mention the Jötnar in conversation, when his own indiscretions ride boldly through the streets in broad daylight!”

“He should not have raised his bastards along with his heir!”

“He should have sent his halflings away to be looked after by servants.”

“He should have buried them at birth. What? I speak only what many from my home hold do. What means you that the boy king here has outlawed it? No, no I meant no disrespect. Simply marvel at king Fjölnir’s wisdom at such a young age, yes that’s it.”

10\. No not that Twitter! Although had the Asgardians been blessed (cursed?) with the internet, and Gerðr granted access to social network sites, he would have indeed twitted the same.

11\. There was actually a guide about overly stimulating sex with Jötnar partners who were not runts in size. One chapter’s title read:

“How To Stay On Top of Your Favorite Giant – For Life and Safety”

It was a most useful piece of literature. Agnar, for example, was given a copy by his ever-thoughtful giant before possible tragedy could occur. Total transformation was not as easy as the Jötnar made it appear, and it was doubly difficult when one’s mind had gone elsewhere. A similar guide existed for drinking with the Jötnar, by the same anonymous author13.

12\. Now dear readers, you might be exclaiming “You don’t do that with your brother!”, with Thor’s very recent proclamations of brotherhood and all. But let us remember, that Thor is a god of old. And gods of old got up to all sorts of shenanigans. Why, just ask Freyr who his mother was, since Skaði sure as Hel didn’t give birth to him.

13\. “Papa, I cannot believe this! A respected leader of his people! A frost lord!” Menglöð exclaimed, blushing purple and waving a thick booklet in his little hand.

“It is a most useful piece of literature my child! It is full of science, and had saved countless lives!” Fjölsviðr defended himself from his prudish heir.  
  
**


	23. Extra: Runt

_**Extra: Runt** _

This is a story that Thor would never know.

**

The ones who only knew him as he was in adulthood would never of think of him as thus, so devious, plotting, and well-learned was he, but when Loki was little with equally little horn bumps, he acted like a child, played like a child, and had playmates like a child. Only despite coming in all sorts of different colours and sizes, none of these playmates were fair and pink.

Loki had liked visiting old Fjölsviðr’s hold, for the sole reason that he would not be the shortest one there, and had someone smaller to push around1.

And this particular visit was especially good, for Gymir’s runt, Gerðr, was also there. Loki maintained that Gerðr was only taller because he was older2. Surely one day Loki would pass him in height3.

The gaggle of Jötnar children stomped through the garden, as their adults talked of more serious things4. And that was when they passed a baby magpie, fallen onto the grass instead of staying up on its tree. 

Helblindi scuffed at it. The creature was small and weak, surely unworthy of its place in the tree. He ambled off to find other amusements. The other children followed him one by one, Helreginn, Hefring, Bylgja, Kólga, and even Gerðr’s younger sibling Beli.

But Gerðr stayed behind, and tiny Menglöð with him. Loki stayed his steps as well, to see what Gerðr would do.

“Oh poor little thing, look at how he has been hurt,” Gerðr the ever soft-hearted said, kneeling down to cusp the baby bird in his blue hands.

“Why do you care?” Loki asked, wrinkling his nose, “It is just a beast, and a weak one at that.”

“He must have been pushed out of the nest by his bigger siblings. Oh Loki, seiðr favours you best out of all of us. Won’t you help him?” Gerðr looked at his friend pleadingly.

Loki thought to refuse first. Why should he waste his magic and time on a half-dead bird? But then he thought of his insufferable younger brother Helblindi, and how he towered over him and stole all of their dam’s attention and praise, and felt a spark of sympathy for the bird.

So he took the cheeping magpie chick from Gerðr, mended its shattered wing, and together all three of them levitated it back to its nest.

Loki thought nothing of it then. And soon found himself in a position where being a runt was the least of his worries5.

**

Years later, while lying on a mat of straw, weak from miscarriage and delirious with hunger, waiting to be sold again, two black and white shadows landed on the sill of his barred window, and with very annoying voices tried to sing for him.

It was a pair of magpies.

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **   
  
1\. Loki’s only compliant was that for all his hold was called the breadbasket of Jötunheimr, Fjölsviðr’s tables had a very limited variety of foods to offer. Not to mention what they had was dwindling, just like the rest of Jötunheimr. But this was long before he knew of the disappearance of Jörð6, who was also called Fjörgyn by all those who fondly remembered him, or the war and all its impacts on normal people’s normal lives.

2\. Completely ignoring the fact that Menglöð was one day older yet still smaller than Loki. But then to Loki’s credit, Menglöð was only half a giant.

3\. He did, but just barely.

4\. AKA a losing war.

5\. Some had wondered why Fjölsviðr kept his halfblood runt. One was even audacious enough to suggest to his lord to rid of the weakling child, like King Laufey and lord Gymir had. 

Menglöð, still very young then, ran crying back to his room. Instead of crying himself to sleep, he stayed up all night and sewed a little doll in the insolent Jötunn’s image. The very next day, before Fjölsviðr could pronounce the banishment of his subject for speaking ill of his heir, the same giant’s tongue detached itself and wiggled like a fish down his throat. Talks of giving up their lordling to Asgard died just as fast as the choking fool.

6\. When the Jötunn Jörð, who was favoured by the earth, was young, and still apprenticed to Mímir, he had travelled to the Well of Urðr, and glimpsed the Norns at their work.

Bold in his youth, he had asked of his future. Urðr shook her head, Verðandi chuckled, and Skuld spoke and told him but one thing.

“Thou shalt not find what thou seekest.”

Jörð thought the Norns mistaken. He was birthed in a time of plenty, already well-known for his magic7, and sought-after by many a great warriors and lords for his beauty. He had even found love, that elusive thing many poor souls had chased after but could not reach. His teacher’s nephew had returned from his sire’s house far away. The young man was ever dazzling and handsome, and had kissed Jörð’s hand and pinned a sprig of primrose in his hair.

7\. Loki had heard of Jörð’s name mentioned often in reverence, as a great seiðmaðr of his people, but he had never met the man in the flesh.

Far away in a realm dead and cold, Queen Hela sat in a miraculously blooming garden, and sipped herbal tea with the garden's peculiar owner. Ah how she loved the realm her Dada had gifted her. None looked upon her with disgust here. Valhalla can keep all the warring brutes. Helheim was where all the real intellectuals and talents gathered.  
  
**


	24. My Father’s Pretty Wife

_**My Father’s Pretty Wife** _

The company left the comforts of Fjölnir’s halls and travelled on. They crossed many borders, and one day found themselves on the edge of King Jónakr’s land. 

They stopped for the night in front of an abandoned barn, and made ready to take rest there. But when they entered, Thor sensed the barn was already occupied. And indeed, at the back of the barn huddled two youths. They backed away from the company in fright, for Thor was a man of great stature and martial carriage, and Loki had the sharp cruel looks of a carnivorous animal at hunt, with the grin of a wolf and the stare of a snake.

“Fear not, young sir and dam. We are but humble travellers, and only ask to share this barn for a night. I am Donar, this my brother Loptr, and here our two children,” Thor smiled at the pair, and tried to calm them.

“But we would also know your names. You have the frightened look of prey escaping from a predator’s maws or the arrows of a hunt. We would not sleep next to fugitives. What if you both hide some terrible crime?” Loki gave them a long meaningful stare.

“We are no criminals! You stain this lady’s honour by your insinuations, good traveller!” the youth exclaimed.

“I am Randvér, son of Jörmunrekkr the Mighty, who is the King of Aujum. This here maiden is fair Svanhildr, daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun, stepdaughter of King Jónakr. Traveller, before you cast us in suspicion, first please hear our tale.”

**

"Svanhildr was known as the fairest maiden in the surrounding lands. Her eyes were compared to dark diamonds, her hair finest raven downs, her cheeks rosy as apples, and her laughter silver bells.“

“Tales of her beauty reached Jörmunrekkr, the King of the Goths. He ordered his young son Randvér, myself, to woe the maiden’s hand by plying her step-father with gold.”

King Jónakr was reluctant to part with his step-child, for his wife did not wish to have her dear girl ripped from the perch at her mother’s knees so soon. But the gold price was heavy, and all girls must grow into women and marry, and so Svanhildr bid farewell to her family in tears, and followed the young stranger to his strange homeland.

But the two young people fell for each other, as youths wont to do, and now both flee the enraged Goth King1.

“Why do you dishonour and disobey your father so? You are his son and subject, and should heed his wishes. Lest no son listens to the counsels of his father, and no man the commands of his King,” Thor chided. The young man had looked respectable, but how looks deceived! Here stood a son who disrespected his father, and consorted with his father’s wife!

“Nay! It is not I who is in the wrong,” Randvér exclaimed. “Svanhildr is young, a spring from newly melted mountain snow, a flower bud just ready to bloom. My father is old, his hair the snow on mountain peaks, a wizened oak tree that stood against time.”

“Yet had my father been sincere, he would have made a good husband, for he is a wealthy and powerful King. But in truth he had many wives, each he tired of more quickly than the last. I can still remember many young faces, before they were cast out by the King. Unlike the face of my own mother, whose is but a blur and a song to me.”

“At first despite the throbbing of my own heart, I too thought to obey my father’s will, and brought Svanhildr to him despite my doubts. Yet the courtiers whispered poison in my father’s ears, and falsely accused me of adultery with the King’s new young wife. Though my heart sang for her, I had not touched even a single strand of her soft dark locks. My father thought of Svanhildr’s coldness towards him in their wedding bed2, and ordered for war horses to trample her dead.”

“I could not bear to see a woman I’ve grown to love be so ill-used and then murdered in my father’s blood lust. Before the eve of execution I broke into her cell, and now we two are fugitives away from my father’s halls. Fathers are not always right, even with age and supposed wisdom at their side, and it is up to their sons to right their wrongs. I seek to flee with Svanhildr to her mother and half-brothers. I have taken her from her home against her will, and I will return her to one, to atone for the wrongs I’ve done her myself.”

“Ah, no wonder the name was so familiar. I recall now, of being told the feats of Jörmunrekkr Goth King, who was known for his propensities of executing his own sons for the smallest slights3,” Loki added. “He has sons aplenty by his many wives, and could stand to spare one or two.”

Thor was angered by the cruelty of the King of Goths. But before he could promise retribution upon the King for his wrongs, Loki stopped him with cautious words, “Let it be. You are but a humble traveller right now, not the High King who sits the High throne of Hliðskjálf. Jörmunrekkr is most warlike and of short temper. Even Odin had not intervened in how the Gothic King ruled his own household, lest the lesser King breaks from his oath of fealty. Why, even if Asa-Thor, the son of Odin himself was here, there would be little he could do without instigating contempt and possible revolt. Worry not brother, a man who cherishes not his wives and sons will soon find that he has no wife or son left. And Gudrun was the fearsome wife of a hero of some renown, her sons of just as hot blood. They would see to that the wrongs against Svanhildr be righted.”

Instead, Loki gifted the couple with three runes. One to speed their way. Another to obscure them from the eyes of men. And the third to turn away the eyes of hawks and noses of hounds. For these the couple were grateful, and Thor somewhat pacified.

**

The young lovers curled up to sleep, nestled close together for comfort and strength. Thor and company sought rest as well in the hay they’ve gathered. Soon snores loud and soft reach the loft of the barn, where a pair of ravens also nodded and dozed.

But Thor for once could not sleep despite Loki’s comforting arms. He thought of the lands he’d passed through, the stories of their people he’d heard and the lives he’d seen, and wondered if his own father’s governance and conduct had been as perfect and wise as he had always been told since youth.

**

When Thor finally fell asleep, Loki woke with a start. He dreamt of a girl un-rescued trampled by horses, and a boy who sent his king-father a plucked hawk, right before he walked resignedly to his own execution. And the girl and boy repeated their fates a thousand times. 

But in the dim light of dawn, Loki saw the lovers slept safe and sound. That unfortunate girl from his dream was not the Svanhildr who was courageous in her love, and that boy was not the Randvér who placed his heart above loyalty to a tyrant king. 

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) ** :  **  
  
1\. And that is why you ask a girl out yourself, instead of making your buddy/son/nephew do it for you. Case in point, Tristan and Isolde.

2\. For all their boasts about being “sufficiently advanced aliens”, the Æsir and Vanir have yet to invent Viagra.

3\. The magpies were confused by this. The purpose of Life was to spread and grow. Why do the wingless ones murder their own brood with such careless gusto? Loki simply laughed and broke up a piece of bread to feed the birds.  
  
**


	25. Interlude: In Which We See What Everyone Thor and Loki Met Are Doing Now OR In Reply to One Reader’s Inquiry On The Mating Habits of Jötnar Witch and Æsir Necromancer Out of Pure Academic Interest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For one reader from the lj kinkmeme community, who had asked for "a porny interlude about the little Jotunn witch and her/his necromacer", "out of purely academic interest".

__**Interlude: In Which We See What Everyone Thor and Loki Met Are Doing Now**  
 **OR**  
 **In Reply to One Reader’s Inquiry On The Mating Habits of Jötnar Witch and Æsir Necromancer Out of Pure Academic Interest**

 

“I, I, I am not nervous! I just never held hands with a girl before,” the scrawny groom with a head of orange hair and a face dotted with freckles stuttered, as he reached out for his bride’s hand on their handfesta ceremony.

“Technically speaking, you still haven’t held hands with a girl. And you better not be holding hands with any girls after this!” the little bride looked up from under his/her veil, looking less than impressed.

**

“Say, do you think the young man who went off to Jötunheimr is doing well? We still haven’t heard from him yet,” Thor mentioned to Loki while lying on a beach towel at The Best Álfheimr Resort for Weary Travellers.

Loki sorted from under his sun-umbrella, “Stop worrying. Last I checked, you are not the boy’s mother. He’s probably still busy consummating his marriage.”

**

“You are the author?” Svipdag asked, his eyes shining with worship, clutching a guide of a most useful and practical nature. One may find chapters within it with titles such as “How To Stay On Top of Your Favorite Giant – For Life and Safety”, “10 Things You Should Know Before Consummating Your Cross-Species Marriage”, “How to Please Your Jötnar Lover Part XI: Delicacies of Jötunheimr – Fish, Fish, and More Fish”, and so on and so forth.

Fjölsviðr nodded in the affirmative, for all appearances a wise and dignified frost lord. Inwardly the old Jötunn preened. Such a good son-in-law. So what if his own child could not see the merits of his/her sire’s literatures? Someone in this family appreciates it!

**

Gerðr closed his eyes and felt the soft grass and crushed flowers under his back. How nice it was to be let out into the garden again, and feel the breeze on his skin as he lay in the shade of the trees.

For this temporary reprieve from his room alone, he’d weather the slightly too hot temperatures and the firm grip on his hair and wandering hand hiking up his skirt.

Of course, the bucket of ice cubes his Vanir lord somehow had gotten a hold of helped. Ah what a cheap trick Freyr had employed, to take a frost giant under the midday sun during this strange hot season, and then trail pieces of ice along his skin.

“Do you not have places to be and a realm to rule, my lord? What about preparing entertainment and amenities for your visiting step-mother? She’ll be here any day now. Instead you are wasting away the day like a common letch,” Gerðr strained and tried to lift up his head to address Freyr. A difficult feat, considering the collar on his neck and the short chain linking it and a wooden post embedded into the ground.

To which the Vanir god replied with a grunt and lowered head, to lick the melted ice from his favorite consort’s blue skin. Ungrateful Jötunn, does he not know how hard it was to come by ice in the height of summer? To shut the slave up, Freyr took a sizeable piece of ice, melted the corners and edges in his palm, and unceremoniously shoved it into the nagging giant’s quim.

**

Svipdag swallowed nervously as his new spouse disrobed before him. Sure he’d read the instruction manual and was given “the talk” by multiple well-meaning elders, from his own father to master Donar to old Fjölsviðr, but he’d also learned since youth that theory and application were ever two different things.

**

The mead of poetry sat in the AllFather’s vault, its original keeper long forgotten by all.

**

“Skeletons?” Menglöð raised an eyebrow at his/her spouse.

“Golems?” Svipdag questioned right back. Looked like they both had the same idea, to subdue their spouse so they themselves would come out on top for the night.

Instead of another heated evening of newly-wedded bliss, both mages found themselves discussing the finer points of golemancy and necromancy like the pair of ~~nerds~~ scholars they were, deep into the night.

**

“So, sibling number twelve?” said the third Agnarson.

“Nay, siblings number twelve and thirteen. Our dam is sure he is having twins,” said his/her eldest brother.

Both sighed. They have to reschedule baby-sitting duties again. How could they properly plot to retake their father’s kingdom at this rate?

**

Svipdag resolved to never lick Menglöð while his spouse was in his/her blue skin, outside, during the winter season again.

It took forever for his tongue to unstick.

**

Swithiod mead saw an increased export order after the Crown Prince of Asgard travelled through the kingdom and extolled its mead’s virtues most vocally.

Fjölnir left the window to his bedroom wide open. Would the magpies with their coded letters come again today?

**

“You missed the chapter about watching out for body parts getting stuck on frozen surfaces didn’t you, Son-in-law of mine?” Fjölsviðr looked down at Svipdag. “Consider yourself fortunate it was only your tongue this time, not another more delicate organ.”

“…” the necromancer sulked, nursing his poor abused tongue.

**

His brothers-in-law brought back Randvér’s king-father, in pieces. Somehow the Gothic prince could not find it in himself to be sorry.

He embraced his wife and again thanked that mysterious travelling mage. Jörmunrekkr’s fortifications were strong, his guards well-trained. The three runes gifted by the mage proved to be just as good for assassination as they were for getaways.

**

“Say Menglöð, I have heard that Jötunn milk is sweet and rich, a most nutritious delicacy to be savoured- Ow! Wait! Ahhh!”

Svipdag found himself in the hallway as the door to the master bedroom slammed shut resoundingly behind him. The young necromancer rubbed the bump on his head. Did Menglöð have to throw such a heavy statue at his person? How on earth had master Donar managed to obtain his drink of Jötunn milk?

**

Thor sneezed hard, and wondered who might be talking about him, as Loki teased the Thunderer about getting a cold in the summer, as only an idiot would.

On Midgard, humans sacrificed their fellows with much spreading of gore and blood in the Thunder God’s name, and prayed for rain and a good season.

**

Svipdag thanked his father-in-law silently yet again, as he flipped through the booklet for ways to pacify an ornery frost giant. He still remembered what master Donar had said about giants and grudges.

**

Somewhere in Värmland, old Jarl Þrymr twirled a gold torc around his finger and hummed. Too bad the prideful little runt had refused to part with his blonde brute. The young seiðmaðr would have felt right at home here, in the home of the foremost frost giant mages.

**

Menglöð pouted and blushed as Svipdag suckled sloppily at one nipple and squeezed the other. Who knew the pressure could get so uncomfortable?

**

The Five Giant Mountains became quite an attraction, both for the mountain range’s beauty, and for the wondrous flora and fauna that dwelt within.

Skrýmir trudged along a silent road in a gray world, finally at peace and content. On his left walked his grandsire and dam, and on his right his parents.

**

Svipdag dotted Menglöð’s curved belly with kisses as his fingers gently massaged in and out of the ice witch’s weeping passage and rubbed at the round little clit. Who said those that dabbled in death were incapable of bringing forth life?

**

The Ivaldisons crafted fine jewelry and household items, while some streets down, Brokkr and Eitri hammered out another perfectly balanced sword. 

Lord Billingr had gifts to give for his daughter and new son by marriage, and he only commissioned from the best of the best.

** 

As the child’s due day came closer, Svipdag found himself often waking drenched in sweat, dreaming that his son had torn Menglöð apart, just like how Svipdag had killed his own mother. But the half-giant was made of sterner stuff.

**

The clansmen of Hrúngnir were amazed, when their lost daughters appeared at the door, rolling a giant mill stone between them.

Overhead, two magpies circled, cried, and alighted on an ancient ash branch.

**

Menglöð presented his newborn heir to his/her court. All who had objected to their lord’s Æsir consort quieted, as they sensed the seiðr of death flowing strong underneath the tiny babe’s fragile skin.

**

Jörmungandr slept, digesting a delicious one year old buck in his belly. He dreamt of his dam and siblings, his slow breath the lapping tides, and his twitching tail great waves and tsunamis.

Somewhere on a farm next to a shimmering lake, an old farmer/soldier watched amazed as his new family-in-law packed away course after course. Why they almost ate as much as that Donar fellow.

**

Menglöð shifted on Svipdag’s lap, trying to find a better angle, as his/her spouse tightened his grip and hissed.

After some fussing, the tiny one leaned back into his/her necromancer’s skinny chest, as the latter set the great white bear they rode on to a slow prowl, his left hand a death-grip around the reins, and his right around his ~~husband~~ wife’s waist.

Underneath Menglöð’s richly embroidered robes, moist, dark purple folds tried to grip hungrily at Svipdag’s stiff member, as it slid deep into Menglöð’s’s quim then nearly out again with the sway of their mount’s lumbering strides.

How nice of father to volunteer looking after their energetic whelp, Menglöð reflected fuzzily, his/her head lolling back, as another stream of wetness gushed from between his/her shuddering legs and soaked the fur and saddle beneath.

Svipdag marveled at the Jötnar and their creativity, and reached into Menglöð’s robes with his right hand to alternately caress his little witch’s swelling member and tease the soft petals around their joining, his ministrations eliciting short mewling moans from the half-Jötunn. Menglöð’s body temperature was still low, especially compared to his own. But oh that tight passage, those sweet muscles. A little bit of friction would quickly warm it up for sure. And to think, they haven’t even reached their vacation destination yet.

**

Skaði was earlier than scheduled by two days, her travels buoyed by a fair wind and calm waves. Young Odinson’s “travelling companion” had suggested in their correspondences that the lady Jarl should travel the realms, see family, take her mind off dark and depressing things. Realizing that she hadn’t seen her step-son since little Fjölnir was crowned, Skaði packed her bags and followed Loki’s advice.

But where was her step-son? Where was the babe she’d held and nursed and clothed and raised? He wasn’t at the doors. He wasn’t in the throne room. The servants searched the bedroom, study, library, and practice fields, but reported their lord could not be found. Maybe she should check herself. Why the gardens might be a good place to start.

And as expected, her hunter’s instincts were true!

“Freyr dearest, you never told me you have found an intimate friend! Does your father know? Secretive little whelp, you haven’t told that grumpy old man before me, have you? Have you?!”

“Ma, ma, ma, mother!” Freyr ejaculated in fright before he could pull out.

Gerðr would have facepalmed, had his hands not been tied to the wooden post too. He settled for rolling his eyes and kicking Freyr in the shins instead, as Skaði demanded her son for introductions in the background.

The magpies who lived before Gerðr’s window landed in the fountain near, and both cackled as if laughing at the Vanir lord’s mortification and misfortune1.

**

“Ehhhhhhh???!!!!” Svipdag spat out his drink in surprise. “Master Donar is The Odinson? What? How? But he was so nice!”

Menglöð sipped his/her tea calmly, “His companion’s name, you said it was Loptr. That’s the very same name a childhood playmate of mine used to call himself, whenever we went down to the markets disguised as commoners. To be free as the air he said. Too bad freedom is a pipe dream for him now.”

“Say, will you do me a favour, husband of mine?” Menglöð suddenly switched tracks, batting his/her considerable eyelashes at Svipdag and ran a dainty finger down his/her husband’s chest.

“What sort of favour?” the young necromancer was weary. That little witch only acted coy when he/she wanted something.

“A small, simple thing. Will you help me support a Prince who is neither Helblindi nor Byleistr, nor myself, of course, onto the winter throne? Laufey is dying, his war wounds never fully healed. And I do not wish to bend to his two dim-witted brutes. Throwbacks of natural evolution! Unfortunates dropped on their heads as babes! It is a sentiment that a number of other Jarls and lords also share. We are a people of great physical strength and calculating cunning. One of these qualities is far more important for a ruler to possess than the other.”

Svipdag thought back to his meeting with the two Jötnar princes, who had rudely threatened to eat him by the way, and asked, “So which prince is it? Have I met him?”

“You certainly have. I’d say you know him quite well. A family friend to us both,” Menglöð smiled.

**

“ACHOO!” Loki squeezed most violently.

“So, you have a summer cold as well!” Thor slapped his Jötunn on the back most merrily as Loki blew his nose.

**

Menglöð took Svipdag to a great icy ravine. A trip for business, not pleasure, he/she had said.

**

Huginn and Muninn circled and cawed, bringing with them the news of King Laufey’s dwindling health. The gallows god waved and dismissed the birds. The Frost King’s sons had a king’s carriage, but lacked a king’s shrewdness, much like his own unfortunate heir. With their dam weakened from his war wounds, the powers of Jötunheimr may shift away from the house of Mímir yet.

Odin gazed out to the land of ice from his seat upon Hliðskjálf, yet saw not Jötunheimr in his mind’s eyes. Instead he remembered a mother, who abandoned her child and husband in cold blood, and an uncle, who refused to share with his nephew the secrets of his wisdom.

**

“What is this?” Standing at the bottom of the ravine, Svipdag ran his gloved hand along the wall of ice. Behind the ice were faces big and small, some peaceful, some stoic, some twisted in rage and others in pain, and yet some more were so damaged, that they were not recognizable as faces at all.

“Graves. For the fallen warriors of Jötunheimr, so that they may be preserved for all to gaze upon.”

**

“More tea?” Hela asked her fellow tea-club member in a blooming garden. How annoying, someone was trying to pull an unusually large amount of souls back to the living realms. She had spent so long sorting them too.

Her friend the gardener raised a bone-coloured cup, smiled a motherly smile, and asked if the young queen had heard of automation.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  
  
1\. Fjölnir's Letter: Dear Loki, Grandma wrote and said she and Mother will both move to live with me for a while. Mother! I am so excited! (ﾉﾟ▽ﾟ)ﾉHow could I ever thank you?

Loki: Just as planned. （▼∀▼)ﾉ  
  
**


	26. How Can You Invent Effective Contraceptives for a Magical Giant?

_**How Can You Invent Effective Contraceptives for a Magical Giant?** _

The company walked on and on, past mountains and rivers, past hamlets and cities. The green grass under their feet turned brittle and yellow. The leafy canopies above their heads dried. Dark obsidian rocks peeked out from under thin soil, and the ground boiled beneath a merciless sun.

The company had come to the edge of Múspellsheimr, that burning land and scorching place too hot even for the Æsir, and unbearable for the Jötnar.

Having regaled the children with tales of fire giants, and sated their curiosity with this quick foray into hot and hostile southern lands, Thor and Loki packed up their bags and retraced their steps. Múspellsheimr was a harsh and unwelcoming place, not one for casual visits, much less a child’s camping trip. Frozen Jötunheimr was cold, but it still had the seasons and its own cycles of life, and one could always put on more layers to keep warm. But you could walk for miles in Múspellsheimr without seeing a speck of life, and strip to the skin and still smother in the unbearable heat.

**

After a full day of marching, with weary feet and parched throats, the company stopped to set up camp. As they pitched the last tent, the air around them shimmered, and the trees beyond a dried riverbed crackled as they were swallowed by sweeping fire.

A column of flame rushed over the trees, consuming the wood and tinder and left naught but ash and cinder, and solidified into the shape of a man before Thor.

“Young Thunderer, why are you in such a hurry to leave? Little áss, why leave before you could pay respect to the master of this land?” the man shaped thing spoke, spewing plumes of smoke from his gaping maw.

Thor squinted up at him. The giant was rude and demanding, but the Thunderer, made more mature by fatherhood and in better check of his temper from his close association with vexing giants1, kept first to diplomacy, “Good sir, I knew not there was a master for this desolate land. I greet you now, and would ask your forgiveness for our ignorance and oversight. I am indeed Asa-Thor. Who might this fierce fire lord before me be?”

“I am the one called Gulveig, Lord Surtr’s faithful servant from Múspellsheimr,” the giant of fire tilted its head. “What have you for me, Asa-Thor, as a gift for the master of this land?”

“We carry fine meat, mead, and pelts from exotic beast. And rare herbs, ore, and baubles from deft craftsmen and smiths from many realms. Keepsakes all from our travels. I would gladly part with some as gifts to you, sir Gulveig,” Thor said to the giant.

Gulveig’s mouth cracked open into a jagged grin, “Keep your trinkets Asa-Thor. You have with you something else I rather covet.”

With this a tongue of flamed reached out and licked lava’ed lips, and an obsidian finger pointed at Þrúðr and Váli, “Why these small ones are full of sweet energy and the juices of life. I demand that you give them to me, so that I may sate my hunger, trespasser!”

Thor had already unhooked Mjölnir when he first saw rising flames across the dead river. With a mighty roar, the Thunderer flung the hammer at the giant’s head. Behind him, Loki let icy daggers fly.

**

Thor and Loki battled the giant for nine days and nine nights, neither losing nor gaining ground, for theirs was a fearsome foe, a powerful general of Múspellsheimr.

Þrúðr also took up her sword and shield, and Váli his bow, and both did their best to aid their fathers, as the land around them was laid to waste with fire and thunder2 and ice.

Gods as they were, the company had not eaten nor rested for nine days and nights. But the giant Gulveig needed no food or rest the way living beings from other realms do. His fire drew strength from the dried wood growing on this desolate land. His form fed upon the melted metals of the earth. His fuel was the very life-giving air all around them. 

Þrúðr’s legs gave, as a boiling boulder struck and finally cracked her round shield, exposing both herself and Váli to the fire giant’s wrath. Thor rushed to them. It was only when he felt the searing pain in his knee, that he realized Þrúðr’s gasp of horror was not for her own safety but that of her father’s. The thunder god looked down, and saw a magma arrow sticking through his left knee joint3. Thor gritted his teeth, swayed, and collapsed on his good knee. Gulveig seized this lapse in defence, grabbed the god in his flaming hand, and squeezed.

Váli roared. Ice crept over his Æsir skin, and a new glacial hide stretched as muscles grew and bones thickened and lengthened. Þrúðr squinted through the blood running down her face and obscuring her vision, but could no longer recognize her playmate and brother. For in the place of the thin dark boy stood a large blue wolf made of permafrost. The wolf was still wiry and compact of build compared to the great warriors of his dam’s race, but was otherwise a giant in name as well as size. When had Váli’s wolf-form grown so large?

Behind the wolf, Loki’s skin flushed full blue, his snarl feral, his eyes poisonous pools of blood. Ice blasted out with the two Jötnar mages as its center. It was said that the worlds were formed when heat and cold met in the void of Ginnungagap, so powerful their respective force, so opposite their nature. But all Þrúðr could see were great plumes of steam, when jagged glaciers rushed to meeting Múspells’ fire.

A pair of raven shot up high into the sky to escape the scorching mists, and cawed as if in distress and mourning.

**

Humid winds swept away the steam.

A god lay bleeding with crackled and burnt skin, one leg twisted unnaturally at a ruined knee. A girl lay unconscious and concussed. A boy fainted upon the ground in exhaustion of both body and mind. A giant obsidian corpse lay across the land. A new volcano would form here, and one day spew forth lava and fire from its restless core.

A blue monster with permafrost for skin and rime for blood crawled over the corpse, pried open its chest with dark long claws, and ripped out its prize.

A still-smothering molten heart.

**

Loki ground up all the golden apples they had left and forced them down Thor’s throat, and watched the god’s shallow breath even. But the Thunderer would not wake. Not to Þrúðr’s sobbing, nor to Váli’s silent vigil, nor Loki’s anger, entreatments, and desperate slap across his burnt face. The regenerative power of the gods had its limits, and no ordinary healers could heal wounds so grave. The rune stone Odin crafted only allowed his son limited movement between the eight realms and Midgard, the realm given to the Prince to oversee and protect. And they had no more apples. Still the children wrapped Thor’s injuries (most of his body) carefully in cloth and gauze, and watched hopefully as Loki applied herbs and potions to oozing blisters.

One morning Þrúðr woke, and neither Loki nor Váli were there. She waited and waited, watched the sun go down and the moon rise again and again, but of the two Jötnar there were no signs or shadows. The girl huddle close to her father and despaired. Had her nurse and brother finally tired of them, and fled for freedom while leaving Papa to die and Þrúðr all alone? But before she could lose all hope, a gentle hand shook her shoulders, and she turned around to see none but Váli, grinning warmly at her with smudged cheeks and a split lower lip. And behind him stood Loki, dirty and haggard but with relief upon his thin face, holding a basket of apples that shone with a golden inner light.

Thor woke to the taste of sweet apple juice and the impression of a scarred mouth upon his lips.

**

“Þrúðr said you saved me with more golden apples.”

“What, will you accuse me of stealing them now? So what if I did4? I did what I had to do. I do not relish the thought of your father finding the Jötunn slave alive while his golden son lies dead!”

“No! I am ever grateful to you and Váli for saving my life. But how? The apples grew nowhere but Iðunn’s orchard realms away. To travel from here back to Asgard would take over a year at least.”

“This would teach you to make light of my seiðr. I have my shortcuts. I would have taken you back to your mother’s healers, but like that hammer, you alone are most heavy5. It is unfortunate, that I could not show you the wonders of the white branches and all the denizens that dwell between, to drink the morning dew collected upon bright leaves, and to pluck the truffles that grew from ancient ash barks.”

**

The shattered kneecap remained stubbornly in pieces, and each shard had to be dug out. Thor bore it with great stoicism, but was relieved nevertheless when Loki pronounced the very last piece removed.

Loki fashioned a kneecap out of the fire giant’s own obsidian bones for Thor. The Thunderer walked with a limp, but still proclaimed the new joint good.

**

Thor was fraught with worry when Loki emptied the contents of his stomach at the smell of his favorite fish. Was the Jötunn sick?

Thor was delirious with joy when the healer he dragged Loki to pronounced the sickness a side-effect of pregnancy. From which encounter was the child conceived? How far along was his heir?

Thor was consumed with rage when Loki took him aside, and explained that the babe came not from thunder but fire. For by eating the fire Jötunn Gulveig’s heart in his grief and rage over the injuries done to Thor, Loki was cursed with Gulveig’s child.

Thor saw a wash of red, as he learnt that the fire giant, even in death, had managed to add such a grave insult to injury. Had it not been his fear of injuring Loki, the Thunderer would have raised Mjölnir and struck the intruder from the frost giant’s womb. How could a blackened heart get Loki with child, when Thor had hoped for so long in vain6?

Instead of Mjölnir, Thor grabbed for a long dagger at his belt and reached to cut the parasite from Loki’s body, to gut it before it could grow into a monster, only for his wrist to be grabbed by thin but firm blue hands, hands that were never before so shockingly cold.

Loki looked up at the Thunderer, his voice calm and gentle, but his eyes piercing steel, and said, “Asa-Thor, again I ask a boon of you. I know you wish to thank me for saving your life, so in return I now ask you to spare another life. Know that all my children are dear to my heart, no matter in what manner they came to reside in my womb.” 

Startled out of his near berserk by the biting frost encircling his wrists, Thor stared back at Loki, and suddenly recalled how the small giant came by Váli, a child so sweet that Thor had forgotten his origin in humiliation and pain. The angry god’s grip slackened, and the dagger, given up to gravity, dropped to the ground.

**

Loki had told the children that they would both soon have another companion, who had whispered to Loki that his name would be Narfi.

Thor was resigned and sometimes torn between sadness and anger, but just as he adapted to compensate for his lame leg, he also grew more accustomed to seeing the growing bulge of Loki’s stomach. They were both hindered by that most unfortunate encounter with a son of Múspellsheimr, and it would appear that instead of forging forward, the camping trip would have to be cut short, and their focus turned to plotting their return course to home and hearth in Bilskirnir.

**

Thor thought Loki swallowed the fire giant’s heart in a berserk. But the Thunderer and his daughter were the only berserkers in their troupe. For Loki, it was a calculated risk. What was another pregnancy, when the heart imbued him with the strength of hottest fire.

The heart also woke something else in him, for the dreams he suffered at night became clearer and clearer instead of fleeing his mind at daybreak. And Loki, ever insecure and cynical Loki, wondered and questioned the dreams’ meanings. But Thor’s embrace still offered the comfort of safety and security, and his smiles still warm and bright as the sun, piercing and scattering the clouds of doubt each morning.

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) ** :  **  
  
1\. One and a half very particular giants.

2\. Thor had hoped to call forth rain, but that part of him came from his rights as 3/4 a nature god. And a nature god cannot go against nature. Rain does not come to Múspellsheimr, and shies away when its sons are near.

3\. And so Thor’s adventures were cut short by an arrow to the knee, like many norsemen before him. Ah but why arrows? Why knees? How were those disabled norsemen still able to find employment as city guards? A mystery for the future generations to ponder for sure. 

4\. Technically Váli stolen them, while Loki led Iðunn away on a merry chase in the shape of a thieving donkey.

5\. The Thunderer was most heavy, that the Bifröst snapped in two the first time Thor set foot on it. It was still under maintenance to this day, a wobbly and unsure thing that struggled to carry thunder’s weight. Loki had entertained the thought of calling upon the nine-mothered one as much as he had loathed the guardian. But the small giant would rather not take the chance of them all falling through the void between stars, just because of how much of a dead weight Thor made.

6\. And Gulveig didn’t even have to touch Loki! This also had once and for all settled the dispute between god and giant on the fertility issue of a certain fertility god. The fault must lay with Thor7, for conception came all too easily for the small giant.

7\. The Norns shook their heads. The gods and giants never gave credit where credit was due. Behind the three sisters, a gleaming tapestry hung, a tale still in the weaving. A mighty warrior with winged helm and a small hammer stood tall and lifelike upon it, branching from him were three small fruits, one named for Anger and two for Strength.  
  
**


	27. Uproar Rematch

_**Uproar Rematch** _

In addition to Thor’s injury, Loki’s condition grew more and more pronounced. Now the company had double the reason to return to Asgard. But as Thor was plagued by a noticeable limp, and Loki’s extra passenger of somewhat considerable weight, they travelled slowly. Steadily onwards they marched, plodding from realm to realm through checkpoints and gates, resting in camps and farmhouses and inns, introducing themselves sometimes as brothers, sometimes as husband and wife, with Loki either hiding his belly or half of his sexes behind a glamour.

The company came to a border town, and saw with surprise beyond its walls the great icy mountains of Jötunheimr. After questioning some of the locals, they realized they looked upon Värmland, which moved next to this town by chance. Thor and Loki both remembered the humiliation dealt to them by Värmland’s Jötnar Jarl Þrymr, and their joint vows of revenge.

**

“We cannot go as ourselves, lest we be recognized by the Jarl’s men and turned away,” Loki cautioned.

Thor scratched his beard, “What shall we disguise ourselves as?”

“Well, we could go both dressed as women. The Värmland Jötnar would remember two men, but not a pair of sisters. I dare say you’d make a fine maid,” Loki wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“NO.”

“Fine. Spoil my fun won’t you.”

**

Just as they had when they went to the gambling house, Thor and Loki left their two children behind when they went to face Þrymr.

The Jötnar guards halted two small visitors at their doors, and squinted down at the stocky red-haired Æsir and his voluptuous pregnant women. The two introduced themselves as Þórr, a travelling gambler, and his expecting wife Lady Logi. Þórr had heard of the famous bets and games hosted by the Jarl of this strange land, and came to test his luck and skill. Both were readily admitted to the great hall by snickering guards. Why here came two more fools ready for the fleecing.

**

Þórr presented a set of fine obsidian tools to the Värmland Jarl, carved out of the finest stones (or were they bones?). In return for his gift, he asked to play some betting games with the Jötnar lord.

“Dice and cards are all too common, and I heard you are a sporting man,” the gambler said. “Now if my lord is willing, we could instead hold three competitions of much greater amusement, and bet upon their winning and losing. The winner of two out of the three takes all.”

As Þrymr was ever a follower of Epicurean ways, he thought the suggestion most appealing, and agreed readily to hold some quick games with the áss and his wife.

First Þórr took out a hammer. Although it was finely crafted, it was also of very small size, with an unusually short handle.

“Now, not that I doubt the strength of all your subjects, for I know mighty giants they be. I would bet that none in your hall could lift this hammer,” Þórr proclaimed.

The giants roared with laughter. Was the áss drunk or born addle-brained? How unfortunate that his vixen of a wife was stuck with such a fool! Maybe they could trick him later into giving her up to more deserving hands? Many at the court were already imagining it was their hands, instead of the brutish áss’, running through that cloud of raven hair.

But merriment and mockery soon turned into puzzlement and frustration, as one by one the giants came up to the hammer and could no more lift it from its resting place than a puny human could lift the Midgard Serpent.

Þrymr laughed heartily at the antics of his court, “Why little áss, you certainly are a tricky one to out-trick the court of old Þrymr! Though poorer in gold, I am much entertained! Now this is but one game. What else shall we compete in?” 

Logi stepped forward, and with a smoky voice, proposed the second contest, “My travels and unborn child have made me famished. I feel as if I could eat an entire banquet without feeling sated. Why, I would bet that I could eat more than any man seated.”

The giants, now more cautious, selected their biggest eater to represent them. Although the woman was heavy with child, she was herself a slight little thing. How much could she possibly eat? Perhaps she only proposed this to garner a free meal for herself, and her husband still had some other trick up his sleeves for the last bet?

The Jötunn competitor and Logi sat down at opposite ends of a giant table, laden with a scrumptious feast, more than what an Æsir family could eat in a week.

The Jötunn reached out with his giant hands, and soon food disappeared without a trace into his wide maw at an alarming speed.

Logi daintily picked up her fork, and ate with manners more befitting that of a formal Vanir court. But somehow her pace was fast, and she matched the giant easily in speed and more.

For Loki now had control over fire, with the heart of a living flame beating through his veins, and his son was ravenous with burning hunger. Together they ate all the food, the plates, cutlery, the table, and patch of floor besides, as the giants watched in shock.

After Logi wiped her blood-red lips with a silk kerchief, and the assembled Jötnar picked their jaws off the floor, Þrymr had to concede defeat.

**

When Þrymr asked what the travellers would have for their well-earned winnings other than gold, the pair asked for what they had lost before, sword and dagger and axe, coins and torc and armbands. Þrymr’s eyes widened in surprise at the list, and recognized the pair as the man and thrall from the gambling halls of Útgarðar.

But instead of calling them traveller Donar and slave Loptr, Þrymr hailed Thor as the Asgardian Crown Prince.

“What a pleasant surprise this is, to have the Odinson himself grace my halls! Although given our last encounter, I had hoped you wouldn’t find my home at all.”

Thor and Loki startled in surprise, to have Þrymr call them out so.

Þrymr tapped his goblet for his servant to fill, and said to his visitors, “Oh but you are a most famous man, Odinson. I would be remiss to not know the giant slayer’s undisguised visage, even out of shining armour and obscured by the smoke and dim lighting of gambling halls. And wonder not little mage. I knew you for yourself since Útgarðar. Frown not in displeasure, for your disguise was most impeccable, a full transformation instead of thin glamours. But your fault lay in using your own face. For in it I saw the features of your dam and sire, and it mirrored what I had imagined the boy would one day grow into, all those years ago when I saw you in their halls.”

Thor’s interest was piqued to hear that the old Jarl knew Loki’s family, and resolved to question the small giant for details later. For now, the Thunderer pressed on for Þrymr’s past slights, “Now that we’ve won back what we’ve lost fair and square and your gold besides, you must answer for your insults against me. You will know my hammer before the day ends!”

Þrymr unhurriedly took a sip of wine, “Ah but hear me out Odinson, lightning child begotten when sky struck the earth1. Would you rather not know more about that delectable slave of yours? I know who he was. Swear yourself, and make your slave swear also, upon the lives of all your heirs, past and future, that neither of you would lift a hand against me and mine, and you will know your slave’s true identity before the day ends.”

Thor was reluctant to swear, not wishing for the Jötunn to get away with his insults.

Seeing the Thunderer’s hesitation, Þrymr teased, “I’ve heard the Odinson’s slave was given the kenning of silver-tongue. I doubt even his master would get the full truth out of so accomplished a liar. Or are you more naïve than I first thought?”

Convinced by Þrymr, for he knew of Loki’s tendencies in twisting the truth and obscuring facts, Thor swore, and bade a stone-faced Loki swear also.

Þrymr’s wide mouth cracked open to a wider smile, and the old Jarl revealed that Loki was none other than the son of King Laufey, grandson of wise Mímir, cast-away Prince of Jötunheimr. Loki was a small, weak, and sickly child, unworthy in his dam’s eyes. When Odin asked Laufey to give up the Casket or his first born son, Laufey made an easy choice.

“Ah little mage, I remember you well. And by the scowl on your face, you must be remembering me. You were quite the proud little Princeling, despite your physical deficiencies and your dam’s distain. You should not have rejected old Þrymr so rudely then, when I proposed to you to join my court long ago. Þrymr would have kept you close, the most prized jewel in my vast treasure box. Þrymr would have taught you all he knew, and make you the most powerful seiðmaðr to grace Värmland’s magical halls. How does it feel, thrown-away Prince? To be passed amongst the Æsir dogs like a piece of meat, to spread your legs in exchange for food and shelter, after Laufey casted you out, after Odin tired of you?” 

“And you Prince Thor, you are indeed your father’s son, to be so different than many Æsir, to be so taken with what two Kings had cast off, and other men had used in turn and tired of. To be so forgiving, even as he carries another’s child2! Are the scrawny thing’s milk3 and quim that sweet?”

“My father was your former owner?” Thor’s shock was written all over his face. So upset this revelation, that Thor overlooked all of Þrymr’s other offending taunts.

“My first owner. Of former owners, I’ve had many. You even have a list of their names, don’t you? But while he was my First, he was not my First. So fear not Prince, you did not fuck your father’s leftovers,” reminded of his less than happy childhood and disgraceful past, Loki’s tone was brittle and biting.

It all made sense then. The owner whose name Thor could not find, no matter how his men investigated. The magic siphon twisted into Loki’s back, so finely and cunningly crafted, evaporating upon contact with the willingly given blood of an Odinson. The children scattered to the winds, never to be found again. Thor did not know what to say, so he reached towards Loki to pull the Jötunn Prince into his arms instead. Let Þrymr and his giants watch. At least to Thor, Loki was most valued.

Insensitive to the distraught lovers, Þrymr then went on to accuse Thor of seeking comfort in one who shared similar blood. Thor was livid, for Loki was close as a brother, but not a brother in blood. Þrymr was mixing up his gods. Unlike the Vanir, who found comfort with their own siblings freely, Asgardians did not revel in such incestuous tendencies. 

“Quiet you tongue Þrymr. We are all children of Ymir. Does this make all the nine incestuous then?” Loki snapped.

“Ymir? But I thought he was the sire of giants and giants alone?” Thor turned around to look at his frost giant.

Þrymr only snarled, “Ignorant Æsir! Take your gold and leave! I’ve had my fill of your kind today.”

**

Thor and Loki took their winnings, and the two stormed out of Þrymr’s high halls. When they were at the city’s very gates, Loki opened his mouth, and from it spewed forth a giant ball of fire, which quickly consumed one wooden house, then as if with a life of its own, leapt to the next, and then the next after, until all of Þrymr’s city was engulfed in flames. Þrymr was crafty to make Loki swear upon that which was more precious to him than his own life. Þrymr was a fool to overlook the babe in Loki’s stomach, who never swore an oath to anything.

Þrymr roared and rode out of his city with his warrior mages, but his quarries were long gone with a wave of Loki’s hand.

**

“Why did you spare Þrymr and his subjects’ lives and only destroy his city? I thought for sure you would kill him for his slights,” Thor asked Loki as they hauled Þrymr’s riches behind them.

“Narfi is young and his powers limited against a mage lord and his host. Besides, a Prince should be gracious with his lesser subjects,” Loki answered. “As for Þrymr, his city and belongings were most precious to him, and it must pain him worse than a quick burning death to have lost both4 so completely.”

And the loss of any talented seiðmaðr in that city would be a blow Jötunheimr could ill afford. But the Jötnar Prince didn’t say this out-loud.

**

The company, now with their possessions returned, and more riches besides, made camp in a quiet groove for the evening. Thor shooed away the noisy ravens perched on a branch overhead at Loki’s request, and settled down to recount the tale of how they bested Þrymr to the children. When the tale ended with the destruction of Värmland’s great capital, the sun had already sunk beneath the horizons, and a lonely moon decorated the night.

While resting on their bedrolls beneath a starless sky, Thor wondered what would have their lives been like, had his father raised Loki as the Prince he was instead of casting him down to be a thrall, and Thor first met his frost giant as a brother instead of a slave.

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**   
  
1\. Frigga was called the goddess of many things, from a symbol of motherhood to the ideal of a perfect marriage, but the earth she was not. That title fell to another. And his was a tale that Thor would not learn of until much, much later.

2\. The Jötnar have a keen sense of smell. It is very hard to file false paternity suits in Jötunheimr.

3\. “Milord Þrymr?” asked one Jötunn as the Värmland court gathered to sweep away the rubbles and ruin left by their two (+1 hidden passenger) visitors.

“Aye Loyal Underling Number 3?” Þrymr answered, ever attentive to his people’s needs and questions.

“How did you know-”

“Ah, how did your lord see through vile Odinson and Laufey’s wicked whelp’s dastardly disguises? How did he hit on Laufey’s ill tempered eldest in the Frost King’s very halls and got away with it? How did Þrymr plant one last hidden trap with our rude visitors without them knowing? How-”

“Eh, sure, those too. But I was going to ask, Milord, how did you know that the Odinson actually drank Prince Loki’s milk? They never denied it. Pretty kinky if you ask me,” the Jötunn scratched his head. Some ice shards flacked off.

“Oh. Well that. That came simply from knowing the habits of Asgardians my boy. Why back when your old Þrymr was young and spry and even more handsome, his Æsir lover had ask for the very same, to suckle like a babe at my bosom. Why I must have been aglow with motherhood and sexual appeal. That lecherous áss5 couldn’t keep his hands off me,” Þrymr recalled his own wild youth with great fondness.

All around the old Jarl, his loyal subjects’ faces turned various shades of greenish blue. As much as they adored their lord, sometimes too much information was just that, too much.

4\. Þrymr was most upset that his most treasured portrait of the first person who had fluttered his heart strings (yes, even old Þrymr was young once) went up in flaming cinders. He had searched and searched, even after all of Jötunheimr had written off that person for dead, but had found no living giant or hidden grave. A pity his offspring looked nothing like him, and inherited all of his naiveté without any of his intelligence.

5\. Nope it was not Odin this time, surprising, although I am sure many readers thought of his name first. Þrymr actually disliked Odin very much, and not just because he led the giants’ enemies.  
  
**


	28. A Lesson in Forestry

_**A Lesson in Forestry** _

Although just as eager for their new little brother’s arrival as Þrúðr, Váli could not help but be slightly weary, remembering just from whose heart the child in Loki’s womb grew.

The boy knew it was the worst hypocrisy, since the seed from which he himself had sprang also left much to be desired. But the new brother would be a creature birthed from fire, and instead of a man the child would be a flame, wild and untamed, with the potential to turn all he touches to blackened ruins. Just look at Värmland’s capital. For once Loki’s tales spoke true, and Thor’s recounting not a boast, for travellers who had passed Värmland all spoke of the devastation left by its trial of fire. Even more than the tale of devastation, Váli still vividly remembered Thor, who was always so hearty and strong, scorched and hanging barely onto life.

They all say that the sons of Múspellsheimr bring naught but destruction to all realms not their own. Would this unborn son also be the same, and threaten the very family that wished to welcome him?

But Váli kept such worries to himself.

**

The company came to a crossroad, where going one way, they would circle a forest, skirting its edges, but the distance long. And going the other way, they would cut across the same forest, and the distance short.

Thor led his family to the shorter way, but they were stopped by a group of Álfar rangers.

“Hail good travellers!”

“Hail!” replied Thor.

“Please take care when taking this shortcut. There are workers performing maintenance tasks upon this forest, and we advise all travellers to keep clear, lest unhappy accidents happen to the unaware,” the head ranger said.

Thor thanked the Álfar for their words of caution, and took his troupe into the forest.

**

“What are they doing Papa? Loki?” Þrúðr pointed to a group of rangers and mages, who were drawing a perimeter with paint and chalk around a large patch of dead and gray trees.

Váli squinted and noted the runes for fire, heat, and containment, and mentioned as such to his dam.

“Well observed Váli,” Loki touched his son’s shoulder in praise. “They are preparing a controlled burning of these dead trees. The Álfar rangers would traverse these forests all year long, marking out death, disease, magical disturbances, and the activities of unwanted poachers. What you see is the bi-yearly purification they perform upon their lands. These trees are beyond anyone’s ability to save. Just as I had to remove all of Thor’s shatter knee to make place for a substitute, so do these Álfar here aim to both remove the fuel for unsupervised fires, which could lead to disasters, and to make space for new saplings to grow. A tedious task, but necessary. Do not look so surprised my son. As a student of magic, you should know that nothing is absolute in this world. Fire does not only destroy. It cleanses and renews, and is ever a part of life.”

**

That night, while Thor and Þrúðr were both away looking for firewood, Loki conjured a small collection of books1, and assigned them to Váli to read.

Váli flipped through the books each night after his Masters were deep asleep, and found to his distaste they were all books about the frost giants, written by biased lords and scholars of the Æsir and Vanir races. Such foul pictures of the Jötnar they painted, portraying Loki’s people as nothing but harsh and heartless beasts, who crawled forth from a frigid uninhabitable land, and brought death and winter wherever they went. But the Jötunheimr Loki painted in his tales was different. Even in the cold clime the land was full of resilient life.

That was when Váli suddenly understood just what lesson his dam had tried to teach. He put the books away and burrowed under his own thick bedroll to sleep, and instead of thoughts of worry, he dreamed a dream about a clear sunny day. Himself and Þrúðr were racing across a green hill, with a third little child, happy and bright, making a most valiant effort to chase after them.

**

Loki’s own dreams were not nearly as sweet. In his dreamscape he trudged along a road lined with graves, rows upon rows of headstones carved with both unknown and familiar names2. In his mind’s eyes he saw the mighty Yggdrasill tree, ashen and dull with sickness amidst a forest of equally great trees. He casted about for a bucket. Surely holy water from the Urðarbrunnr would save her and make her whole again. But when Loki reached the well, it was dried and filled with mud. And when Loki raised his hand, he saw that instead of a bucket, he held a brightly lit torch.

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) ** :  **  
  
1\. Somewhere, some library is missing some books. Oh curse the uncivic-minded, to borrow but not return public property. 

2\. Ah and this row of little gravestones held the names for all his children. But that cannot be. Some of them lived. Why although he hadn’t seen Hela, Fen, and Jör in years, Váli was safely with him, and Narfi not even born yet.  
  
**


	29. A Math Question In Disguise

_**A Math Question In Disguise** _

People attacked Thor and company with an alarming frequency. 

In fact, so often were they waylaid by highwaymen and brigands of all sorts, that Thor one day limped up to Þrúðr hard at work attempting some sort of jewelry craft.

“I am making a necklace for Váli with the skulls of all the men he slew1. He can wear it in his big frost wolf form! Look how many we’ve collected!” the girl said brightly.

Thor thought they appeared easy targets, a cripple, an academic man/pregnant woman, and two children, and redoubled his efforts at smiting the offenders.

Loki thought perhaps old Þrymr yet had more tricks up his sleeve, and left something unclean with them. He shifted through their loots from Värmland, and found from within it a ring. Some querying spells later, Loki confirmed it was cursed to invite greed and strife, to forever turn honest men to thieves, make sons kill father, siblings one another, and pit husband against wife, all for want of the ring. The ring was called the Andvaranaut, and while it caused no grief for Þrymr, sealed behind the old Jarl’s magical strongbox, and it affected not the Princes of the golden and frozen realms or their heirs, it drew lesser men to ruin like moths to a flame.

Worse yet, it could not be cast off or given away. It would only change ownership, when taken by less than honest means2.

**

Thor laid down in the shade of the trees with Loki after warding off yet another band of ne'er do wells, and noticed how the Jötunn’s shirt front was not stained with sweat, but with much sweeter stuff. Loki’s pregnancy must have advanced for milk to start flowing once again. Thor offered to massage and clean Loki’s chest for him, only to have the irritated frost giant slap his hand away. In the corner Þrúðr giggled while Váli turned bright red.

**

The travellers saw a rampaging bull charge across the road, knocking over fence posts and trampling the crops. Thor grabbed it by the horns and subdued it. Loki made a tether for the beast, and the company led it after them. Before dusk, they came upon the farm from which the bull had fled.

The company was received warmly by the farmhands as guests. The owner of the farm had recently passed away, and left four sons to divide his land. The four bickered and squabbled, but could not figure out a way to equally split their inheritance.

With a few brush strokes upon a thin parchment, Loki solved the sons’ problem for them. Instead of being grateful, the farmer sons eyed their guests’ gold, but were weary of Thor’s strength, having heard the tale of how he tamed a full-grown bull and saw the evidence of it. But Loki saw his chance, and wittingly left the Andvaranaut and some gold unguarded. When the company bid the farm farewell the next morn, both ring and gold were already stolen.

The sons soon fought over how to split the gold, and one slew the other, until all were dead. And when a gossipy black and white bird told Loki this news, the Jötunn huffed a sign of relief. Better their deaths than his own constant annoyance. And now the ring was ownerless, and could do harm no more3.

**

Loki thought their troubles over. Yet when they alighted in an inn, and Thor left to bargain for rental horses to the next post, some shifty characters who were drinking in the common halls followed Loki to the outhouse, and back him against a wall.

“Hey scrawny little man, while your brother is away, why don’t you show us where you’ve stored your gold, seeing how your brother had tips to spare, and we won’t have to show you a good time?” One leered at him, while another tried to make a grab for his arm.

Loki left them dunked into the dung pits dug into the outhouse. Can’t people come up with more creative threats these days?

He went back and inspected the gold again, only to confirm that none were enchanted. It was then he realized his follies. Men were greedy and covetous animals, and need no geas or galðrar to be enticed by gold.

Thor saw Loki packing away all their gold into small bags and stuffing said bags into different luggage and pockets and shoes, after he came back with news of secured transportation and a fat roast goose. 

Loki explained, “Riches bring misfortune when you have not the strength to defend it. And Riches not your own doubly so.”

**

Somewhere in Svartálfaheimr, some Dvergar received a new commission for a stronger chain. Gleipnir Mk. III they called it4.

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) ** :  **  
  
1\. Váli managed to convince the Princess that such a necklace may give people the wrong ideas. Heard her not of that giant wolf chained away by the Æsir, for fear of its potential danger? The boy persuaded her to help him grind the skulls into fine powder for black magic instead.

2\. Here let us note that gambling is not an honest mean to wealth.

3\. Until the next sucker picks it up, that is.

4\. And thus continues the tale of how Fenrir helped to create Dvergar employment. The wolf child thought it all rather unfair. Hela had her realm. Jör his ocean. And lucky little Váli their dam. Why had the one-eyed one stuck him alone in a cave? It was just one hand. One bloody (but so delicious) hand!  
  
**


	30. My Big Sister Cannot Be This Cute

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Props to anyone who got what the illustration is referencing. And no I haven't watched the show, but I do know of it.

_**My Big Sister Cannot Be This Cute 1** _

Thor and company reached the great halls of Alvíss, a powerful dark Dvergar lord, and again introduced themselves as brothers travelling with their respective son and daughter. The Dvergr, eager for tales from beyond his mountains, was gracious enough to grant the travellers shelter. But all men suffered their vices, and the Dvergar were of no exception. Alvíss’s sight alighted upon Þrúðr’s golden hair, which shone brighter than even the finest gold in his dark halls, such softly spun Glasir’s needles, bright Æsir’s fire, Freyja’s tears given solid form. And with this one look he could not tear his eyes away2. What he wanted, he must possess.

The next day, Thor went out to the hills surrounding, to hunt some games in honour of their host. Loki went with him despite the increasing heaviness of his pregnancy, for Thor’s lame leg worried him. The walls of Alvíss’s halls were close and tight, fashioned as they were to be most comfortable for the Dvergar, who did not possess the heights of taller folks. Váli and Þrúðr felt caged in, so both excused themselves from their hosts, and went outside.

**

Thor and Loki had meanwhile finished their hunt. Fortune smiled upon them, for she pointed to them a hot spring with which to cleanse themselves of blood and gore. Thor’s abused keen joint felt immensely better, as the water soothed the nerves around the missing bone. Soaked in nature’s pool, watching water stream down the Thunderer’s golden flesh, Loki found his loins grew heavy despite the drag of gravity upon his heavy stomach. The trickster’s foot crept up his Prince’s uninjured leg, and gently massaged Thor’s not-so-little hammer. Thor replied in kind, by sheathing it in its favourite place.

Mindful of each other’s conditions, their encounter was slow and unhurried. Loki’s breath hitched and his toes curled as Thor teased milk from his chest with his teeth and tongue. Thor took his time lavishing both nipples with his full attentions. He had missed this, the taste of his Jötunn’s rich milk. With Váli, the milk was creamy and sweet. This time, perhaps due to the influence of a fire giant’s heart, what flowed forth held a hint of spice, but was no less delectable3. And Thor was set on getting what he could, for once the babe is born, Loki would not be so generous with this gift.

With the combined stamina of a god and a giant, albeit tired ones, both lost track of time. Their children were safely sheltered. They could use some time for themselves. And Thor had hoped the spring would also do Loki good as it smoothed his own knee, for the giant had not slept well since the start of this strange pregnancy. 

**

Night came, but saw not the return of Thor or Loki. Alvíss on the other hand saw his chance, for while the man was imposing and his brother/consort shifty-eyed, the children would be easy games. He would kill the son and steal away the daughter, then magic his hold so deep underground, that their fathers would never find the children again. So with hast he climbed out of his iron doors, and claimed that Þrúðr, with her beauty, would make a suitable bride. He himself was rich and wise, and would be a fine husband who will help the young maiden get many strong sons. The girl should be honoured, for what peasant girl won’t jump at the chance to be included in the collections of a King in all but name?

The Princess was disgusted, and wished to strike the dark dwarf down. She would scrap his skull into a good drinking cup, and grind his bones until they were the right shapes for a game of dice.

Váli was livid, his sworn sister was barely out of childhood and the match poor. But he was ever Loki’s son, and he hid his anger well. Alvíss’s halls were filled with warriors, and they were in the heart of Dvergar country. Strength alone might not be enough, especially since Thor and his hammer were far away.

Instead he laid on thick flattery, one of the first skills his dam had taught him4, “Oh great Dvergar Lord! Of you wealth we have all seen, and most impressive were they and numerous in quantity. And in hosting our family I can see that you are kind. But my father is a well-learned man, and under his influence my sister is doubly swayed by wisdom. Would you recite all that you’ve seen and all that you know, so that she may fall doubly in love with you? Then I would gladly bless your union in my father’s stead!”

Alvíss’s chest swelled with pride, for he had always fancied himself a refined man. He first recounted his lineage, the lineage of great noble lords. He then recounted his wealth, the troves rivalling the most greedy of dragons’. He spoke of the travels from his youth. The nine realms he did tread under his feet! He then began recounting what he knew, of history, war, the minerals of the earth and their extractions, the ways of politics and kings, what little he knew of the skaldic arts, and his vast knowledge in how to pleasure women.

So focused was he at leering at Þrúðr’s hair while recounting a bawdy tale, that Alvíss failed to notice the sun rising behind him. He being a creature sprang from the earth and hid so long in the dark, the bright rays’ radiance was anathema to him. So it was that in the midst of his courtship, Alvíss, great Dvergar lord, turned to stone and crumbled away.

Váli proclaimed to the Dvergar court that their lord was so captivated, that he did not notice the time. Yet his deeds would become ballads to be sung, for what greater tales are there, but tales of love? Take heart people of Alvíss’ halls, your Lord was great! And your land shall be greater, having nourished such a loving Lord! The sentries from the doorways all saw how their lord subjected himself willingly to the heaven’s fiery orb, and could not disagree. The few advisors, wiser in their craft, sought to object and detain the lying brat and his sister, but it was then that the fathers have returned. Thor, upon finding out the dwarfs’ ill designs for his precious daughter, brought down storms upon the land, and split the ceiling of the Dvergar halls with a strike of lightning, so that all who failed to flee in time shared the fate of their late lord.

**

Sweet golden Þrúðr, sure-footed strong Þrúðr. Þrúðr who let Váli play with all her toys. Þrúðr who slept always by Váli’s side. Þrúðr who freely shared her father’s love. Þrúðr who stood up for her half-giant slave, and pushed his worst tormentor down a deep dried well. Of your shining hand no man will ever be worthy. And vile jealous Váli will never allow another’s hand to comb through those golden locks, for they were his and his alone.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  
  
1\. The whole reason this chapter was written was for this parody.

2\. And the girl continued to attract more and more attention as she grew older. Her hair in particular was always praised with such emphasis, that Þrúðr got so sick of it, that she actually sheared it off for a boyish cut5 in young adulthood. Váli secretly sulked for days.

3\. Magical Jötunn Milk, it comes in many delicious flavours!

4\. An essential life skill.

5\. It didn’t work. People still praised her hair. It was shorter, but no less fine.  
  
**


	31. Monkeys with Science

_**Monkeys with Science** _

On the way home, Thor and his little troupe again passed by Midgard.

“Ah sweet Midga-” Before Thor could finish, a horseless carriage bore down upon them. Loki quickly leapt aside with the children in tow, and helped Thor untangle from the mangled metal monstrosity as an afterthought. Thor apologized to the two ladies and one older man, the shaken owners of this most strange contraption, most profusely.

**

To Thor’s delight, Midgardians were still as friendly as they were before. The guards (police and ambulance) called by the older lady ferried them to a small town, and the three humans showed great hospitality to the ones responsible for the destruction of their property.

**

Thor discovered coffee and how it worked upon gods just as well as mortals. Loki cursed the Norns in every language he knew.

The children discovered smartphones, and to Loki’s horrors, social media and the internet at large. They would never be innocent again.

**

The younger of the two ladies introduced her adult guest to the myriads of toys to be used in the bedchambers (or out of it, if you were daring). There were much enthusiastic samplings.

**

Þrúðr was distraught when she accidentally revealed to Miss Darcy that Váli, and by extension Loki, were both of a different species, and the pair her father’s thralls1.

Now Miss Darcy would no longer be nice to Váli anymore! She would be so angry, tricked to be nice to slaves for so long. Next time, Þrúðr swore that next time she would control her own tongue.

But surprisingly, Darcy’s outrage wasn’t directed at Váli or Loki at all. Midgardians sure were a curious race with curious customs.

**

While they were busy travelling, Midgard had changed into such a different place2. Thor mused as he munched on another pop-tart. Loki nestled against his side, scuffing and offering sarcastic commentaries at the wildly imaginative but just as wildly inaccurate tale of marauding Vikings unfolding on the smooth screen before them.

They would have to come here more often.

**

It must have been the poisonous pop-tarts that Thor was so insistent on sharing, Loki reflected as he hurled into the porcelain sink. Morning-sickness so late into the pregnancy was unheard of amongst the Jötnar race, but the nightmare of a small stomach split wide open and loops of intestines snaking towards blue arms and legs shocked Loki awake. And the lingering nausea and flash of fear were enough to make even Loki throw up everything he ingested yesterday, as Thor held back his hair and rubbed his back.

**

**NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  
  
1\. Miss Darcy had asked how Þrúðr’s parents met. A support group for single parents perhaps, the lady had jested. By which the girl guessed she meant how her father and Loki had met. As honesty was a virtue her father had instilled (but Loki had scuffed at), Þrúðr told her everything3.

2\. Loki took an interest to the Midgardian invention called “zippers”. He took some samples and made notes to mail some to Menglöð and more to the Sons of Ivaldi, and wondered why the other realms still used laces and strings4.

3\. And that was how Darcy found out Váli’s collar wasn’t a fashion statement.

4\. What does not die does not change. And Midgard’s flighty children, with their all-too-brief lives and endless curiosity, are an outlier amongst the stagnant realms.  
  
**


	32. Who Would Name Rivers Kettle-Bathes?

_**Who Would Name Rivers Kettle-Bathes?** _

Thor and company came upon two intersecting rivers, and such wide rushing waters they each had, only to double in might now combined, that Thor exclaimed these were the greatest rivers. Past these rivers stood the realm of the gods. Loki walked a short distance along the bank, and found faded runes carved into a raised stone, proclaiming these to be the Kerlaugar rivers, so rightly joined, that they had no need of separate names. There were no bridges in sight, but Váli’s keen eyes spotted a small ferry bobbing up and down the waves. 

The ferry man was old, with a heavy hood over his head and a ratty gray robe over his clothes1.

Thro called out to the ferryman, and bade him lend the use of his boat, and in exchange, the god would pay him handsomely in coin. 

The old man introduced himself as Hárbarðr, but stubbornly refused to let Loki and Váli board. 

“There is a spell upon that man, and a glamour upon the boy. I would not let duplicitous people who hide themselves board! What if they are terrible giants, waiting to steal onto my boat, and murder me for food? Unless they show themselves, you and the girl alone can board and reach the gods’ land beyond.”

Loki’s grip on Thor’s arm tightened. He knew the Prince would not leave them here, but the gray-robed one filled his heart with dread.

Sensing Loki’s distress, Thor squeezed his hand reassuringly, “Why should my brother be beholden to a ferryman? He is free to appear whatever way he likes! We would all board, or none at all!”

“Then none at all it is then!” Hárbarðr declared.

**

The rivers were wide, the opposite shore beyond sight. 

And the water, which benefited many things, and which was both so weak that it held no shape of its own, and so yielding that it allowed other things to pass through it with ease, congregated here in such volume, that the rivers were like a roaring dragon, a stampede of horses. Theses rivers rushed towards their destination with the rumble of thunder, and divided the land clearly in two, a moving wall to keep out all those unworthy of godhood.

The waters were so deep, that no bottom could be seen. The rapids so fast, that great logs were swept downstream like so much twigs. And no animals risked crossing it, lest they be swept away and dashed to broken pieces upon jagged rocks. And no mortal men should be so foolish, lest those who dared inevitably drown, and sink deep to the currents’ wet embrace.

The children, young in their age, and Loki, who was of Jötnar birth, but had no Jötnar stature, also could not easily cross. And this natural barrier, which divided the god-realm from its lesser neighbours, yielded not to Jötunheimr’s ice. And this enchanted boundary, which guarded Asgard against trespassers, allowed no bridge to be built over it, and pulled down all birds that flew overhead. 

But Thor was of god stock, the thunder birthed when heaven touched the earth. Into the water he stepped, with Loki carried in his arms2 and the children on his shoulders. Forwards he trudged steadily on, across the river as if wading a large stream.

The waves lapsed. In the depth great fishes darted about. The sky above was cloudy with the promise of rain, and a pair of ravens cried from the river bank.

**

Thor was headstrong enough to wade the Kerlaugar burdened with his three charges and a lame leg. 

Thor called his slave brother in earnest and wife in jest.

Thor had not bedded anyone else on his entire journey.

Odin looked at his son’s retreating back, and worried.

**

 **NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **  
  
1\. Now before you ask how could Thor not recognize his father’s famous disguise, I must ask you, dear reader, this question: What kind of man would openly advertise to his wife and son the sort of disguises he would wear when he goes about cruising for extramarital one night stands?

2\. Bridal Style!  
  
**


	33. Sweet Mother of Gods

_**Sweet Mother of Gods** _

The rivers were wide in their combined might. Thor soon found he could neither see the bank behind him, nor yet any shore before him. But he was nothing if not stubborn, and such stubbornness had served him well in the past. So the Thunderer gritted his teeth, bade the children hold on tight, adjusted the cradle of his arms around Loki, and marched on with hobbled strides.

When the lapping of the waves finally hit upon a sandy shore, Thor’s swollen keen joint finally gave out around the prosthetic bone, and the Prince collapsed in the shallow waters. Loki steadied himself, and together with the children, dragged Thor to shore (without his choosy hammer, of course). A forest grew some paces inland, and the sounds of wild birds and beasts could be heard.

Loki deftly stripped Thor of his water-laden attires and helped his Prince into the shades of the trees. Þrúðr and Váli laid out Thor’s clothes and armor upon the rocks for the sun to dry. Thor fell asleep where he lay, and Loki was himself close to dozing. But he batted sleep aside, dug into their soaked packs, and brought out the last of their apple peels. He took one piece into his mouth, chewed it methodically, and leaned down so he could feed the mulch to Thor through a very practical kiss. The Thunderer’s breathing evened out as he entered a deeper sleep. Loki sat down at last, and dragged Thor’s great big head onto his own lap. The children on the other hand were young and unhindered, with some energy left to spare.

“Thor would be asleep awhile yet. Þrúðr, take Váli to scout the near trees for food, so that your father may eat and recover his strengths upon waking. Do not venture too far into the forest, and hurry back as soon as you can. I would still come if you call for help, but I’d rather not leave Thor by himself,” Loki said as he gently combed Thor’s soggy hair and beard with long fingers.

Þrúðr and Váli made the promise to not go far, and went about to explore. As they climbed over fallen trees and ducked under low-swept branches with their catch of unfortunate quails and stolen eggs, they came upon a giant stone slab half sunken into the mire. Their curiosities were piqued, but their worries for Thor won out. Instead of exploring like they both itched to do, the children returned to their fathers’ camp.

**

After a quick lunch, Loki gave the children leave to investigate the stone properly, as he himself was also curious. The children picked their way back through bushes and brambles. With a closer view, Váli saw patterned groves and lines upon the great stone’s weathered surface, which could only have been made by the hands of men. Together, the children snapped leaf-laden branches from nearby trees, cleaned what they could from the stone, and found inscriptions that read:

Here lies the sister of the wise one  
From whose well wisdom springs  
From the land of the frost  
At the root of a tree  
Refreshing was the drink  
And knowledge it did bring  
But with knowledge cometh sorrow and pain  
Gone was his head  
Gone was her life  
The fair maid Bestla now forever sleeps here  
No snow upon the summits high  
Nor oceans lapping upon the shores will she see again  
The wife of ▢▢▢, he of great earth and mountains  
The mother of – 1, 2, 3, 4

“Too bad it cut off near the end of the story,” Váli lamented. But even the hardest stones gave way to wind and water, and most inescapably, old lady time.

Þrúðr scrunched up her nose, “I don’t see how this maid could have been fair. Look at the size of her gravestone. She must have been enormous. All I got out of it was that too much studying is bad for you. So Váli, you should study less, and play with me more!”

“How did you ever arrive at this conclusion, Þrúðr? Like Master Thor, your line of thinking confounds me!” Váli exclaimed, once again sympathising with his dam on the subject of well-meaning idiots and headaches. 

Large girls do become small sometimes out of love. Like all frost giants, Váli’s memory was long and thorough. And in exact details he recalled Skaði, who changed himself with seiðr for the sake of a Vanr. And Fenja and Menja, who sang to him and shrank their proud forms for the company of a man who wronged them in return. He wondered what kind of giant the owner of this grave was, Mother Ocean who wedded Father Mountain, her epitaph the telling of a creation story. Their children must have been awe-inspiring and fearsome forces of nature. He’d have to check with father sometime, to see if he knew the tale.

With nothing else to see, the children abandoned the gravestone, and returned to their fathers to help set up dinner.

**

The journey was long, the travellers weary. But oh the tales they had were worth all their troubles, and home and hearth were just a few steps away. 

Soon the man would again be a Prince, his spirited daughter a Princess. And their beloved companions and family would also to their own stations be returned.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  
  
1\. Three guesses who one of her sons was.

2\. The wise brother (although he was neither only a brother, nor only a he, just as his sister was more than a maid) in this story gave his life for the sake of peace5. Peace for his nephew’s kingdom, and in turn the nine realms. He was buried elsewhere. A certain gallows god kept his head in a pouch as one of his greatest treasures. It was better than Wikipedia, and held more indexes than Google.

3\. Váli wasn’t as unrelated to his big sister as he first thought. And he would have found out too, had the headstone been intact enough to tell the whole tale. Ah such myths and legends we have, so filled with kissing cousins, that you wonder if the majority of the gods don’t suffer from at least some recessive genetic defects.

4\. Dear old Þrymr didn’t confuse his Æsir and Vanir in their predilections for kissing their own cousins, but as he was all too busy filing insurance claims for acts of gods, he had little time to care.

5\. For one with such heritage, King Laufey inherited little in the ways of wisdom and peace.  
  
**


	34. Interlude: In Which We See What Happened/Is Happening to Some Other Jötnar from Jötunheimr

_**Interlude: In Which We See What Happened/Is Happening to Some Other Jötnar from Jötunheimr** _

Somewhere in Frigga’s drawer was a crumpled old book, its pages stained yellow with age. Her husband had looked for it for a time, but had given it up for lost when his searches yielded no fruits.

She would share it. She would share it, when the time is right.

**

Freyr sat alone in his garden.

It was a beautiful garden. One could almost say it was the most beautiful garden in the nine realms1, with so much effort and love poured into it, and its owner a fertility god.

But Freyr saw not the beauty of his garden, not the budding primroses or the trailing azalea, not the willow-herb or cranberry or bilberry or bearberry. The fragrant orchids held no scent for him. The warblers’ songs reached deaf ears. His stare remained on the bright blue snow gentians, but saw in his mind’s eyes something else entirely. 

He sat, unhappily alone, and recalled past times.

**

Dear Journal,

I am overjoyed to be finally accepted into the apprenticeship of Mímir the Wise, our Philosopher King. Ah to think that I, a curious but simple soul, would soon be studying at the knees of one who is an even more renowned intellectual than old Vafþrúðnir!

Goodbye for now Journal, I must go finish packing my bags.

\- Jörð

**

A week after Freyja’s marriage to Óðr, Freyr finally left the gloom and solitude of his room, dragged by his warriors to the great bustling market.

The war, which they had all fought so hard to win, was finally, officially over with the signing of the peace pact. Reparations from Jötunheimr were due to arrive that day, and the warriors eager to divide it.

Freyr cared not for Jötnar goods or gold, for both goods and gold he had in his possession plenty. And he cared even less for Jötnar slaves, for he still remembered Skaði’s firm bosom and strong arms, remembered burying his face in her mass of flame red hair as she rocked and sang him to sleep, remembered the towering blue giant who uprooted great trees and hurled them at brigands foolish enough to invade his land and threaten his stepchild.

But then he saw a tiny giant with curling ram-like horns, naked and shivering not in cold but fear. The giant stumbled as men pushed and pulled at him/her, his/her dark nipples bleeding from abuse, his/her twin sexes displayed for all to see as potential owners forced open his/her legs. He/She was the opposite of Freyja, dark where she was fair, thin and reedy where she was full and ample. Yet his/her blue skin and cascade of black hair reminded Freyr strangely of his childhood home. Suddenly the Vanir god found the whole scene distasteful. He signalled his retainer and pointed out the slave. Perhaps something very different would take Freyja off his troubled mind.

**

Dear Journal,

I cannot believe that Þrymr tried to feel me up during class today. Although he is a dear fellow student, a seiðmaðr of considerable talent, and our teacher speaks well of his craft, the man’s conducts left much to be desired.

And he left a bundle of bleeding baby seal meat on my desk. Does he not know I am allergic2?

\- Jörð

**

Freyr got along well enough with his new “houseguest”. The Jötunn was shy and soft-spoken, very much unlike Skaði and her boisterous and straightforward ways. But he/she nevertheless made good company, and Freyr’s memory of his sister dimmed as he found relief in the Jötunn’s blue arms.

So it was with surprise that Freyr one day woke to red hot pain to see a knife in his gut, held and twisted by trembling blue hands. The Jötunn sobbed and hissed at him, demanding Freyr give his/her brother back.

Two days earlier, Freyr took home with him a pair of giant ram horns, cut from the head of the Jötunn Beli, son of Gymir. The young giant broke their treaties, and wreaked havoc upon Freyr’s hold, demanding to have his elder sibling freed.

So it was with a bleeding gash on his stomach that Freyr found out his Jötunn’s lineage. Why had he not asked before?

**

Dear Journal,

The first batch of my experimental seeds was deployed today across three different holds most suitable for vegetation growth. The next step would be to record their performances over the coming years and compare them with their controlled laboratory counterparts.

Food shortage is ever a problem in our frozen homeland. My full hope is to see my winter crops thrive, and prosper the land and nation that had nurtured me.

\- Jörð

**

Freyr touched the long scar on his stomach. His Jötunn sat chained in its room, neither moving nor making a sound. It had survived its punishment only to waste away in confinement.

Perhaps some outdoors time would do it good. His garden had a high enough wall, and would be a suitable ground for walking an exotic pet.

**

Dear Journal,

My teacher’s sibling-son came to study in our halls. He is ever a fascinating man. 

\- Jörð

**

The Jötunn pet was fertile despite its deficiencies in size. It gave birth to a son. Freyr stroked the boy’s pale blonde hair, and stared in wonder at his tiny pink face.

Familiar songs from Freyr’s childhood drifted through his garden, accompanied by the gurgle and laughter of a small babe.

**

Dear Journal,

The humankind is an ever-fascinating species. They die so quickly, yet learn so fast. On a whim, I’ve introduced one tribe to the art of agriculture a few ages back. It was with great surprise then, that on my most recent visit, I have discovered how far the knowledge had been spread, and how much these primitive creatures had advanced the art all by themselves. Midgard is a different world compared to our long-lived and slow-living realms. Some may scuff, but I see in the humans a potential for greatness, while the elder races’ advancements and discoveries slowed and societies atrophied. It is imperative that our governments promote the importance of learning and innovation, lest the masses cling to the old without ever trying the new.

On a post note, it is most amusing that some humans have equated my name with the earth. I shall treat it as an honour, to be compared so with great nature.

\- Jörð

**

At his father’s urging, Freyr married a Vanir noblewoman. Her skin was fair, her hair a cascade of gold. Her features resembled those of the owner of Brísingamen.

The new bride quickly gained the favour of her husband and lord. So when his servants advised her to never entered Freyr’s garden, for it was barred from all but the Vanir god himself, she ignored their words. Did they not vow to share all that they owned?

What were in that garden shocked the poor woman to the core. She cried and wailed at her husband to rid of his pet beast and its bastard whelp.

Freyr consoled his wife and begged for her forgiveness of his past follies3, and took her on a hunting trip to ease her troubled mind.

The lady went away sitting upright on the back of a horse, and came back lying on a stretcher, her neck broken from an unfortunate fall.

**

Dear Journal,

Asgard went to war with Vanaheimr. Why do people go to war? Why are people ever so eager to destroy one another, when it only leads to their own destruction in turn? Is it not more efficient to overcome resource issues through careful usage and advancements of magic and science? Is it not more virtuous to overcome conflicts and differences through civilized conversations and settlements?

I may have grown in my understanding of seiðr and the world through it, but in the ways of life, I am naïve still.

\- Jörð

**

Freyr’s wife lay alone in her bed. Her hopes were raised when she heard the door creak. Has her husband come to visit his recovering wife?

But the figure that crept in under the cover of the dark was thin and slight, with a cascade of dark hair down its back and winter’s frost on its breath. A layer of ice encased the lady’s mouth before she could cry out in surprise. Cold hands hefted the lady up into surprisingly strong arms, and carried her out the door, across the hall, and to the top of a flight of high stairs.

The lady tumbled down, down, down. Her long white neck, barely mended, snapped with a crack as she hit the floor.

**

Dear Journal,

My teacher’s head has been stolen from his grave. I weep for him, first to lose his sibling to the war, then his life to end the same war, and now even his body cannot lie in peace.

So gone were all his wisdom, before he could impart them full.

\- Jörð

**

Oh unfortunate Freyr, to lose his wife so soon after his marriage. The poor lady, overjoyed at her newly recovered health, tried to walk without assistance and rolled down the stairs.

Freyr accepted the condolences of his peers and subjects with a grieving face. Inwardly he wasn’t sure whether to punish his Jötunn for wiggling free of its confinements, or praise it for saving him the trouble of finishing the job4.

**

Dear Journal,

I am with child. May he take the best of his sire and dam. May the son of Sky and Earth be great.

\- Jörð

**

Freyr announced to the realms his heir, Fjölnir, and gave the boy a kingdom as his teething gift.

**

Dear Journal,

He married. The bride was a Vanir maid. He said it was a marriage for the sake of peace, and that as a pacifist, I should understand. As my priorities will always be my seiðr and research, I know His priorities will forever be tied to His realm, so I do understand. I hope we can all get along. She looks kind.

\- Jörð

**

Freyr sat alone in his garden, but saw not its splendors. The ones for whom he had it built were gone.

His mother's eyes were filled with disappointment, and his/her eyes reflected naught but apathy.

**

Dear Journal,

I went to the Well of Urðr again today. The samples I took worries me more than my last visit. The Well’s contamination worsens. There must be a way to reverse this corruption or purify it.

The young White Ash upon which all our worlds hang depends on that Well. My teacher had postulated before his passing that The Tree’s ill-health should be curable. Yet the Norns say nothing, and I, who had spent all my life working with plants, cannot find a viable treatment for terminal YGG tissue atrophy without dependency on water from the Urðarbrunnr.

I have attached all of my research on the Tree, the Realms, their gods and people, and how one affects the other. I will continue to do so for any further findings. Should I pass before my work can be completed, I hope whoever comes into ownership of my research would either continue this work, or else give these notes to others who are able. Should the Tree die, all, regardless of race or belief or godhood, would die.

Somehow I feel the solution is not mine to find in time.

\- Jörð

**

Freyr was jolted from his melancholies with disbelief and tentative hope, when his servant announced that Gerðr Gymirson, sole heir to Frost Lord Gymir, and dam to King Fjölnir, seeks audience with Freyr, Lord of Álfheimr, chief god of Vanaheimr.

**

Dear Journal,

The ambitions of kings are ever overreaching. I fear Asgard may go to war with Jötunheimr, and between Him and my teacher’s heir, I know not which side to side with, when in my heart, I know I would rather pick no side at all.

My teacher once said we were all birthed from great Ymir, and that is why our two races sought each other so. I’ve in my past work managed to isolate from Jötnar milk and Æsir tissue samples chemicals most attractive to the other race. I wonder if what teacher said was true, and we each crave the other to make ourselves whole.

If we were all born brothers, why do we war still?

Goodbye for now Journal. My decision has been made. I fear I won’t have the time to write in you for a while.

\- Jörð

**

Dear Gerðr,

Our first-born Prince has made contact, and returned to us remnants of the arts of Jörð, the one favoured by the earth. With it my father and other like-minded lords and Jarls have started to replenish the strength of Jötunheimr.

I heard you have shaken free your shackles, but for the sake of our realm, I must implore you to dive back into the fire again.

A realm’s strength is measured by its people, land, and prosperity, but also by its allies. You alone out of all of us have the best chance and means to sway both Vanaheimr and Álfheimr away from Asgard’s side.

\- Menglöð

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  
  
1\. It is the second most beautiful garden in the nine realms. A certain garden in Hel claims the title of the most beautiful, but the majority of the general population would have to be dead to visit. So it is unsurprising that most are not very eager to see it, and many do not even know of its existence.

2\. And so went the tale of how Þrymr has thwarted his own first attempt at courtship.

3\. In a room behind a hidden door and heavy locks, Freyr consoled his slave and rubbed ointments onto the purple bruises and bleeding welts across its back, left when it shielded his son from his wife’s rage, and promised to rectify the situation as soon as he could. He’ll never take a wife again.

4\. Gerðr lamented his master’s inefficiencies. Must he take matters into his own hands?  
  
**


	35. The Slow but Steady Conversion of Bilskirnir into a Nursery

_**The Slow but Steady Conversion of Bilskirnir into a Nursery** _

When Thor and company finally crossed the threshold of Asgard’s gates, all they wanted was to collapse into their well-missed beds and sleep. But first Odin asked for his son and granddaughter’s audience. So Thor and Þrúðr were whisked away to their rooms in the palace, while Loki and Váli were left to Thor’s servants, who glanced at Loki’s stomach surreptitiously.

When Thor returned from the healers’ capable hands, Frigga’s doting, and much feasting in the Princess’ honour, he found he had to put down yet another rumour about frost giant slave and bastard children.

All doubts of Loki’s unborn child’s parentage were erased1 when Narfi burst forth into the world in a great ball of fire, and the flames of his arrival scorched acres of orchards and glade to fine black ash.

**

Þrúðr was quite pleased to have another brother to play with, while Váli made a mental note to never devour the hearts of his enemies. Dada was stuck with the healers for days, and now had a burn scar on his stomach to add to his collection of old wounds.

Thor thanked the Norns silently that Narfi was nothing like Gulveig in temperament. When Loki finally let him hold the babe, the little body in his arms was slightly warmer than he remembered from holding Þrúðr, and the boy hiccupped and drooled just like any other baby. So when Narfi grew into a happy and affectionate, if not a bit too energetic toddler, Thor found himself unsurprised.

Loki cursed Gulveig for his inferior blood, for Narfi was more like Þrúðr than Váli in his studies, never mind that Thor insisted a child so young should be left to frolic and play and given all the cake he could want. What did that oaf know of the ways of elemental mages?

**

“Tell us the tale of the giantess twins again! I thought all giants possess two sexes at once, but you said these ones were clearly buxom women?” Fandral asked with rapt interest as he cut another slice of beef. Lejre was no more, but maybe the twin beauties had yet survived. He would love to meet them in his own travels. Unlike that fool king Fróði, he’d show those ladies a most excellent time2.

“What is there to tell, Fandral, but that they were well-endowed and half naked. You have seen many of those before. I’d rather hear about that feast again, where the mead barrels were large enough to swim in!” Volstagg patted his friend on the back as he tore into a lamb leg.

“Oh but think of the size of them! What a waste! Tied to a stone mill with chains instead of a feathered bed with silk,” Fandral exclaimed. “Well, no matter. While we are on the topic of giants, how is that little giant of yours? I cannot believe there are rumours going around yet again about him carrying the get of your seeds. I thought surely they would have learned after the first two times.”

“Ah, but it is mine this time! Loki insisted on calling him Magni3. I invite you all, friends, to his formal naming day! Once he is born, of course,” Thor’s face split into a huge grin.

Fandral’s jaw dropped. Volstagg choked on his mutton. Hogun simply refilled his mug, and took a good long swig.

**

Alone in his bed, Loki sweated and kicked away his thin blanket, twisting and turning restlessly, yet he did not wake. 

In his dream, Loki dropped to his knees and screamed as the sagas of many times past were no longer fuzzy shadows dispersed by morning daylight upon waking4.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**

1\. Thor was exasperated to find that while one rumour was put to rest, another about Thor’s prowess in bedroom matters arose right on its heels. Something must have been wrong with the line of Odin, for the Prince’s well-bedded slave to seek out the company of another man and got so quickly pregnant.

2\. Fandral would have not said that, had Thor told him the second half of the story, about rivers of blood and such. When Thor returned to Asgard, the fell of Gotland somehow got attributed to the opportunistic invasion by the Sea King Mysing. Word of mouth was again unreliable, as attested by the simple game of telephone that you yourselves might have played, dear readers.

But Fandral the Dashing did eventually meet some hill giant twins with strong arms and good singing voices, and had a blast of a time. He was lucky like that.

3\. The Norns were meticulous ladies, having been tasked with the weavings of countless tales of life. Timing was important, so were order and numbers. Some constants in the great tapestries were nearly unmovable, even for sky gods. 

4\. The Norns received a rare caller, who was daring enough to ask of his own fate. Instead of a cryptic answer like the one they gave to the last person bold enough to ask the same5, the three sisters sat their visitor down, and told him a thousand sagas that were all but one tale, told a thousand times before.

5\. That one favoured by the earth. What a waste, alas, alas. But then nurturing earth gods6 were ever replaced by forceful war gods, such was the nature of the nine’s violent living things.

6\. “Congratulate me, dear girl,” said the gardener to Hel’s young queen.

“What for?” Hela asked, sipping her jasmine and honey tea.

The gardener’s smile was bright, “I am to be a grandparent again. It is a joyous occasion, even if my future grandchild and I are worlds apart. And despite the slight lack of genetic diversity, the child will be a very healthy one.”

“How would you know, if the child is yet unborn?” Hela was skeptical. But the gardener had proven himself to be the keeper of much knowledge over the length of their acquaintance.

“My child is a fertility god, and his children will ever be well. And I do tend to know these things. For where do you think he inherited his fertility god status from, along with his never-tangling hair, manly jaw, and stunning biceps?” the gardener asked, showing said biceps.

Hela rolled her eyes and pointed at the gardener’s slightly pudgy stomach, only to have the man blame too many cakes and childbirth prior to his life’s end, and exclaim that the entropy of death also did no favour on his stretch marks, didn’t she know?

**


	36. Drink Milk Love Life Remix

_**Drink Milk Love Life Remix** _

Thor returned home from his morning’s survey of his hold’s fall harvest, sweating the sweat of honest labour. He sought out his Jötunn, hoping to spend a lazy afternoon with him. A bath together while the maids took care of the children would be good. Perhaps Loki would even let him sample his sweet tart1 milk. His chest must be swollen with excess by now.

But Loki was not in their joint chambers2. Loki was not in his study. Loki was not in the orchards. After some inquiries with the servants, Thor found Loki and the three children in the kitchen, slicing up an apple pie stuffed with the fall’s new apples, baked to golden perfection.

“There you are hiding! I have looked all over for you,” Thor exclaimed, after filching a thick slice from the plate. 

“Where did you think we would be? It’d be a waste to not take advantage of the year’s bounties,” Loki took a piece for himself, after serving three equally cut slices to the children.

That was when Thor noticed a tart smell that came not from the pastries. It was the sweet unique smell of his Jötunn’s milk. Thor looked around, and saw Þrúðr chugging down a tall glass of fresh milk, Narfi attempting to dip a piece of the pie crust in his little bowel, and Váli sipping his own mug quietly. 

“What is it my Lord?” Loki raised an eyebrow at Thor’s betrayed look.

“Is there is no more milk?” Thor asked dejectedly.

Loki sipped at his own apple cider, “Of course there is no more. That is what you get for coming back late. Do you take me for a milk cow or goat? To be able to produce enough to feed the lot of you?” 

“Was the pie baked with-3”

“Of course not!” Loki snapped before Thor could finish his stupid question. “It was made with goat milk. Don’t be creepy.”

**

But Thor still got his share of the milk later, after all the good children were put to bed.

**

**NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  
  
1\. A different flavour each time4!

2\. For TriadAnon, who wondered about current housing arrangements in the house of Thor:

While Þrúðr still bounced with excitement at the impending birth of Narfi, she was less than enthused to have to move out of what she viewed as her nursery to a room down the hall.

She consoled herself that Váli would still be with her, so she was surprised to find only a single bed in her new room. She was a lady now, her tutors said after her lessons, and the male slave must move out. Would she bring dishonour to her fathers’ house? The girl held her temper in check, and went to seek out her father.

On the way she heard with surprise from the maids that the nursery would be closed off until the birth of another royal prince or princess. Then where was Narfi to sleep? She thought the nursery was to be his.

When she reached her father’s chambers, she saw the Crown Prince in rough work clothes, painting the door frame for a newly installed door between his chambers and an adjacent guest room, all the while muttering choice words definitely not befitting a Prince about meddlesome advisors and what he thought of them. She peeked through the door, and saw Loki putting up a colourful mobile from Midgard above an oak cradle.

At dinner the Princess demanded that her slave be moved to the room next to hers, as he was both a bodyguard and servant to her, and must be near enough to be at her beck and call. Thor quickly approved of it before the tutors could find more objections. The remainder of the evening saw her sawing off half of the wall between their new rooms, and Váli casting an illusion to make it feel solid and appear whole to prying eyes.

Thor was flabbergasted when Þrúðr showed up in Loki’s new room before sleep a few nights later, dragging Váli and a blanket behind her, and demanded to know in which bed Loki was sleeping that night, so that they may make themselves comfortable for bedtime stories5.

3\. While the courts were abuzz with the news of their Crown Prince’s unborn bastard son (what a terrible shame), a certain mother goddess and war bride sat at her loom, and remembered another Jötunn from long ago6, and how sweet the pastries he’d made from his own milk were. A scientific test on the reaction of the Vanir race to Jötunn milk, he had said, would my dear lady volunteer to be a willing test subject?

4\. Odin returned from Svartálfaheimr to find his wife and Jörð sharing a new invention of the Jötunn’s, pushing a single glass cup back and forth between them. Sorbet they had called it, made with berries from her gardens and milk from his bosom for extra flavouring. Would our Lord fancy some? 

He never knew he was capable of such an intense flare of jealousy. But as he was a trickster god before he was ever a sky god, he smiled and accepted his own cup and spoon gracefully. 

5\. For Tragicomulco, who wondered about the frequency of a certain Jötunn’s pregnancies:

Alas poor Thor, first cock-blocked by his older children and their ability at picking locks and showing up at the most inopportune times, then by being given the glamourous task of shaking Loki awake at 2 in the morning for midnight feeding.

When Narfi was finally old enough to be foisted off onto Váli (only the insane would trust Þrúðr to babysit), Thor grabbed Loki and fled with the excuse of a diplomatic trip to Vanaheimr.

Both were quite pleased to find that the gardens of Freyr were now semi-open to the public, and took the first opportunity they found to make good use of the impressive hedge maze there7.

6\. She knew not what she expected when she was sent away to the golden land, to be the queen of a people who were both so different yet similar to her own. She knew not what she expected when she found out about her husband’s dalliances, one of whom, she had found, lived in her husband’s very halls.

She thought there would be no peace between them, by her own people’s hands his teacher was killed, and by her own self he was robbed of his place by His side.

But when she sat unaccompanied at the long table, her husband nowhere to be seen, he came up, moved a chair right next to her, and asked with an open smile if he could have the dear lady’s company, so neither would have to dine alone.

7\. “Mother told me you were conceived in my lord father’s gardens?” asked king Fjölnir, a few cups into his mead, of his handsome young guest.

Magni facepalmed.  
  
**


	37. On Feathers and Fetters and the Sky

_**On Feathers and Fetters and the Sky** _

Loki has been distant lately. He conversed with Thor little, shied away from his touches, and appeared disinterested during their private moments, as if his mind was far way, on other things.

Thor attributed it all to the pregnancy, which has been more volatile than the two before. His yet-born son had made Loki moody. And even worse than the last pregnancy, Loki’s nights were wrecked with restless nightmares. Compounded by the urge to throw up the entire content of his stomach at every crow of the cock, dark shadows under the Jötunn’s eyes became a permanent fixture on his too-thin face. The healers prescribed draughts and tonics, scented oils and enchanted runes, but none could calm the small giant.

And Thor’s arms, which he was sure used to bring comfort to Loki, started to bring about the opposite, as Loki woke more than one night, screaming and tearing at his bedmate, begging to be let go, begging for mercy, begging for his sons, his eyes filled with terror and a hint of madness.

Thor moved Loki’s beddings to the nursery, and asked Þrúðr to look after Loki in his stead. Finally the Jötunn was able to find sleep again, nestled between all his children.

Alone in his empty bed, the thunder god stayed awake and wondered where they went wrong, as unseasonable rain pattered outside his windows.

**

As violently as it came, the morning sickness went away just as quick. And Thor felt nothing but gladness, when he returned from the practice fields one day, and found Loki’s pillow and blankets back in their bed again.

**

All who dwelled within Bilskirnir breathed a collective sigh of relief, as their Prince’s mood lifted with the improved health of his favorite thrall. Váli, who was born of Loki, and had inherited his observant nature, thought his dam more pensive than before. And the boy was sure Loki had walked The Tree again, for he smelled the lingering scent of stardust and leaves on his dam’s cloak, and felt the dampness splashed from Urðr’s well in its linings.

**

Iðunn was gone, whisked away in the night, leaving nary a trace behind. No one knew who abducted her, or where she was hidden1. The Einherjar, the arm of Odin, searched high and low to no avail. 

Just as Jörð’s ease with the earth gave his people grains and stores to sustain life past long winters, so were Iðunn’s apples necessary for her people to prolong life and retain their longevity and health. Without the goddess, her orchards wilted and withered. 

The chief of the gods, AllFather Odin, put out a reward, promising one favour from himself for any who could bring the goddess back. Many brave warriors took up the task, only to fail in their questing. 

The people, feeling the slow but steady creep of time upon them like an iron vice, fell into fear. For while they were immortal, their youth was not eternal. Without the apples, they would wilt and wither just like the orchard without Iðunn’s care, but never granted a natural death. They would live on as husks, unwilling to take their own lives lest the cowardly feat denied them of the great feasting halls of heroes beyond. Yet, how could that count as living at all?

With hope they looked to their Prince, for surely the Thunderer would prevail where others failed. The Prince, ever dutiful to his realm, rose to the occasion, and organized search parties and bands led by none other than himself. They rode out the city’s golden gates before many a dawn-breaks, and searched across the lands for days and weeks on end, returning with the night star over their shoulders, but not the keeper of the golden apples.

So it was on an early misty morning, with Thor not yet returned from his searches, that his pregnant slave, hiding the child he carried from public sight behind an illusion, showed up in Odin’s great hall amid confused murmurs.

“Lend me Freyja’s cloak,” said the slave. “I will find for you your means of immortality. In return I ask that both I and my line be freed.”

While the Jötnar’s transformations were many, the sky was ever the Æsir’s domain, and a giant of frost held little power there. But with an enchanted feather cloak, the possibilities were endless.

Odin hummed in consideration. While some gods were rankled by the slave’s arrogant assumptions in thinking he would prevail where gods have failed, Odin was a much more practical man. He agreed to the slave’s terms, and bid Freyja give up her cloak.

**

Newly returned from his own fruitless searches, Thor raced to his father’s halls when he heard of the rumors while riding past the market, the rumors of how an insolent slave thought to resolve what the gods themselves could not.

Thor ran up two, three stairs at once with each wide stride, dashed through the doors, and pushed past the Æsir crowd, just in time to see Odin seal the deal with the Jötnar seiðmaðr. The return of a goddess for a slave’s freedom.

“Loki, it is too dangerous! We know not what trials you may face. I will find some other way!” Thor reached to grab Loki’s arm, only for the Jötunn to side step his hold.

“Loki please, do you forget that you carry our child?”

But Loki donned the feathered cloak without a word, and the great black bird he turned into took to the sky with a shrill cry.

**

Logi the fire that warms my hearth, Loptr the air that I breathe, please, please do not leave me.

**

That fool Þjazi. Does he think what he has wrought would benefit those of the frost? If the AllFather found out that a giant under the oath of peace was the one responsible for kidnapping Iðunn, neither Jötunn trickery nor their already diminished might would be sufficient to stay the god’s wrath. Their beloved realm would be leveled before the gallows god grew too old.

And perhaps, just perhaps this time, the gods, who prided themselves so much on honour, would keep their words. But ah, best not dwell on such foolish expectations, for they’ve always led to disappointments in the past.

Loki incanted first a rune for inducing the very opposite of sound recollection and remembrance, and then another for implanting false memories and impressions as he flew, the wind whistling past his feathers.

**

Contrary to favoured belief, Loki returned victorious with Iðunn, who only recalled being kept away in a gilded room atop a tower2, but not who her kidnapper was. Loki came upon her when there were none else about, and flew her, transformed into the same shape as one of her famed apples, to freedom with the help of the borrowed cloak.

But when Loki asked for his payment due, the Æsir broke out in mocking laughter. He did not help them with his own powers! The frost giant slave owed it all to the magical cloak. And its owner, bright Freyja, more than him, deserved Odin’s promised favour.

And the chief of the gods, the one-eyed Odin, thus decreed, “You used borrowed powers for your own selfish gains, instead of in service to your Prince, who had always treated you better than you deserve. What more freedom could you ask for, with a master as generous as my son? You were declared a slave by your own father, and a slave you shall remain.”

Loki’s look upon Odin was filled with venom. Venom impossible to miss, even for Odin’s son who stood behind his father.

If Loki was Loptr, and Loptr the intangible air, and if Loki was Logi, and Logi the unstoppable fire, Thor wondered if set free, would Loki simply disappear, as the wind can never be trapped, as the flames ever discontent with being harnessed. Then he was hotly ashamed of himself, for almost being complicit in oath-breaking, for putting such a look on Loki’s face. But as he made to speak up, Odin’s one-eyed gaze fell upon him most heavily, that the Prince’s open mouth snapped shut again.

So when Loki looked to Thor, his eyes beseeching, it was only to see the Prince silent with an impassive face. He was unsurprised at Asgard’s scorn, for what divided gods from monsters of old but their ability in being better pillagers and liars. He was also unsurprised to seeing Thor’s inaction, yet it still jammed a wedge into Loki’s heart, as a thin crack split the tentative hope built up ever since that first meeting in a fallowed field. So this was how it was to be then, the Thunderer siding yet again with his own kind and kin. Would he raise the hammer yet again too, against the very man who had gifted it to him?

“You called me a brother, Thunderer, yet only wanted a slave all along!” With a hiss Loki twisted into the form of a water snake. The gods grabbed at him, only to have him slither and slip away each time. Soon he was lost in the grass.

**

He sided against him in the end, the many times in which they were sometimes uncle and nephew, others the closest of brothers, and often the dearest of lovers and companions.

It was nothing short of folly, to expect otherwise when they were now slave and master.

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) ** :  **  
  
1\. For they had no experience in tracking down the keeper of the golden apples, since Freyja was usually the one to be abducted. The gods scratched their heads, and went through their list of likely suspects, but came up with naught. 

2\. Þjazi’s subjects cried foul for the misuse of their tax money, right after the Prince cast-away by his King chided the frost lord for his badly thought out plans and gaudy taste.  
  
**


	38. Family and Succession

_**Family and Succession** _

Thor looked and looked long after everyone else had given up finding the escaped Jötunn, but returned home an empty-handed man. Yet as he pushed open the door to the main study room, who else did he see but Loki, regaling the children with the (heavily edited) story of how he rescued the golden orchard’s keeper, while leaving out how the gods (and Thor, especially Thor) broke their oaths.

**

“Why, why put yourself and Magni in such danger? I could have thought of something! Heimdallr or the guards would have eventually found out the kidnapper’s schemes! Was it for the reward? Do you seek to be freed from my company so?” Thor rushed into the study and seized Loki’s arms in twin crushing grips, shaking the Jötunn in both anger and relief.

Loki raised his head and gave Thor a flat look, “Please kindly unhand me. You are scaring the children.”

Thor turned and saw Þrúðr and Narfi’s wide eyes and Váli’s worried face. He let go of his slave as if burnt, and backed out of the study as if chased by Hel’s own hounds.

**

Loki slept in the nursery for months. Thor didn’t dare ask him to come back to their rooms.

**

One afternoon Thor pushed open the door of his room, and found Loki sitting in his chair beside the large window, braiding strips of leather.

Upon seeing what it was, the Prince had to breathe deep and slow, lest he rushed to tear the offending leather out of Loki’s hands and cast it out the window.

It was a tiny collar, in the same manner and style as Narfi’s magic suppressor. The son of a slave would also be a slave, such was the law of Asgard.

**

Ah poor Magni, even if he would have no chance in inheriting his sire’s title, Loki had hoped the boy would not have to inherit his dam’s.

More fool him, for the Æsir were famed oath-breakers to those not of their own kind. More fool him, for daring to hope to stand with a god as his equal, for daring to hope that Thor would chose differently this time. When Thor shook him in the study after that failure of a day, Loki had wanted to tell Thor thus. 

And I did it for the safety of my own people, for I am ever their Prince, and this chief objective at least achieved. And I did it for that stupid boy from long ago, who once thought the AllFather good and fair. And I did it for you, to re-obtain that which prolonged your vitality before it is whittled by the chisels of time. Loki thought as Thor gently took the half-finished collar out of his hands, and replaced it with a bundle of small woollen socks sent by Frigga, but this too Loki again did not say out loud.

For by passing the test of his King, the Thunderer had by the same act failed the test of his slave. And Loki, dishonest and secretive Loki, held his private thoughts and troubles even tighter to his own self.

**

“I cannot free you against the AllFather’s decrees. But Magni will live a free man, this I promise you. He is my son, and Asgard’s Prince. I cannot free you, but never doubt that I have thought of you as an equal for a very long time,” Thor vowed to the Jötunn.

I promise you change, Thor also said. Only to have Loki point out that while a realm like Midgard changed, Asgard never did. For there was no death, and hence no renewal. 

“Look at Midgard,” said Loki. “They crawled in the mud while our fathers warred. They fumbled with fire and bronze at the start of our little trip. Now they fly against gravity, talk with one another over great distances with a network of machines, profane the very makeup of the plants and beasts they share the world with, and are ever striving for more. This, is change. Because their lives are brief, and their old ideas die as they die, that they could change. Asgard is a snapshot frozen in time. Even you, great Thor, would not be able to change that. There is no death here, and as payment for this boon, no renewal.”

“I alone might not be able to bring renewal, but together, surely. Loki,” Thor grabbed Loki’s shoulders, his voice pleading.

Loki only laughed bitter and long, but thanked Thor for his sentiments anyway.

**

Thor sought audience with Odin, and asked why his father broke his oath, why should Loki, a Prince by birthright, and his children not be freed.

Odin gave no answer, but pointed out that Laufey gave up his first born in bondage to Asgard’s King and the King alone. Thor had neither purchase the slave, nor was he gifted with Loki. He then had servants bring in three cushions. On each one lay a muzzle, a collar, and a thick loop of golden thread, three sets in all, in three different sizes, as if custom-made.

Thor stared at the familiar tools, and found himself robbed of speech.

That was when Odin spoke, “Son, you are a Prince of Asgard, and should conduct yourself so. I care not of your dalliances, as young men are allowed indiscretions for their needs. But take care what you do and what you speak. Was it not you who spoke loudly at Freyr’s son’s great moot, that gods and giants are not so different, and the peace treaty brought no true peace? But that is fool’s’ talk, and I would hear no more of the same from you. Now here you are to talk of oaths. We have broken no oaths, for oaths can only be made to men not beasts.”

Thor asked no more, and bade his father good afternoon, his father, who could take Loki, and by extension Váli and Narfi, maybe even Magni too, away from their home with the full support of the law.

Behind him, the AllFather sat firm the throne, and recalled the mocking laughter of the Norns and the whispers of Mímir’s head, as they all predicted the advent of a tiny beast, a walker of worlds, who would tame ice, thunder, and fire, and both diminish and prosper the house of Odin. And the very same beast would lead a legion, and catalyze the end of the world. If Thor and Loki wished to blame anyone, then they should first blame the Norns and the tapestries they weave.

** 

Frigga stopped her son and led him to her chambers. There she gifted him with children’s clothing, all handmade with the softest clothes, in four different sizes. And she gifted him with soft little blankets, in Thor and Loki’s colours, to keep the children comfortable and warm. She blessed her unborn grandson, and hugged her son before he took his leave. 

The goddess then fell into her own remembrance, of a dark mischievous child who brightened these empty halls while Thor was away fighting his father’s campaigns.

When she knew that the AllFather would not let her adopt this child as she had adopted Thor into her bosom, Frigga had thought the child would instead make a fine companion for Thor once he (she?) grew up. A war bride to unite the lands for her step-son, just as she was for her husband. But the goddess woke one day to find the tiny giant suddenly vanished, as if he was never there, just like a certain other giant from ages before. And in his study sat her husband, who refused to say a thing, just like he did when the one favoured by the earth disappeared from their lives.

So she was sad, sad to recognize the child in the bitter thing with too many cracks that showed up again in her husband’s banquet halls. Yet she was glad, glad that the child had found his way to Thor. They keep each other in such fine company now, just as she foresaw they would, all those years ago. 

**

Odin remembered his annoyance when he first saw Nál’s runt, and how he cursed the fertile womanhood of the Jötnar. 

He remembered some unbidden joy, when the boy had shown such aptitude for crafts and magic, and how he drank up knowledge with such thirst. In all these the child was much like Odin, a sweet reminder of the half-blind god’s own youth. Unlike his other child bore of the earth, who inherited his father’s might and his dam’s heart, but none of their sharpness of mind or deftness of crafts.

He remembered his rage, when he learned that the runt was actually Fárbauti’s get. For the maiden Nál was known to most as King Laufey, the Winter King who dared to reach above. He had lain with his war general shortly after his last dalliance with the AllFather, and got a child from each.

The war between gods and giants had already raged on for ages, and Jötunheimr’s land had been barren, its provisions stretched thin. The babes fought in their dam’s womb for whatever nutrition a warring King could spare, and Fárbauti’s child was the stronger, conceived of pure vicious Jötnar blood, twice heir of mythical Ymir and grandson of wise Mímir. He slew his own half-brother to take that safe watery haven all for himself. Yet a runt he was born still, for the years of war were hard indeed.

Cursing the Jötnar whore for his deceit, Odin cast out Cruel Striker’s whelp.

But most of all the AllFather remembered his fear, when the monster crawled back to him through the branches of The Great Ash broken and scarred, pleading for him to take it back, to please, please take it back. It would be useful. It would be good. It would never speak out of turn or play pranks again. Look at the new magic it learned, slipping in and out of the worlds.

It was a walker of worlds who diminished the house of Odin even before its birth. And from its barely matured womb more monsters sprang, the start of a legion.

The god banished it and its monstrous brood deep into Hel, only to have it return from the dead with its four-legged and legless whelps. It had passed master’s test. Its little Hela now ruled Hel for her dam’s master. Would master now take it back?

Odin could still hear the echoes of the Norns’ shrill laughter when he sealed the unkillable little beasts before they grew into their full powers. He then bound their dam’s magic with a golden thread, and watched the light in its eyes grew dimmer and dimmer as this tedious work grew nearer and nearer to completion. When he cast it out again, it didn’t try to come back.

He watched it pass from hand to hand to hand, kept in bonds as its magic was kept in chains, paying every day for its unforgiveable crime (His own son! Would he have been like Odin had the poor boy lived, a great seiðmaðr and trickster god of inquisitive mind?). Until suddenly, it disappeared from his ravens’ sights, as if through a crack in the world.

It came back on the saddle of his true son and heir1. When it again entered his halls, it was in the company of the Crown Prince. Its expressive eyes glittered with laughter as its new master turned to touch its wrist and share some private joke at the courtiers’ expense.

And Odin watched as the beast curbed Thor’s brashness and temper (natural ice that tamed thunder, and later, against all logic, fire), kept the Thunderer from danger (prospered the house of Odin, and now it even carried a bastard in its womb), and inch by creeping inch wormed its corrupting influences into his son’s too-open heart, until the once dutiful Prince started to question the decisions of his King (Look at all these petitions he’d sent, each more forceful and direct, telling a High King how he had erred in ruling his lands). 

It was then that Odin finally resigned to the truth, that prophecies were ever self-fulfilling, and even a god could not turn aside fate’s tides.

**

But a god could always have another son.

**

“What are you writing Dada?” Váli asked his dam while looking over his shoulders. Þrúðr and Narfi were both fast asleep. And Thor was away on a campaign, again.

“Correspondences to our friends from the camping trip. Would you like to add some words? To the newly crowned King Agnar’s children perhaps? You have played so well together,” Loki turned to stroke his son’s hair. How tall the boy had grown.

Váli picked up a quill and dipped it in the inkwell, but paused and gave his dam a look, “What are you planning, Dada? These are powerful friends that you have made along the way. And slaves like us are not free to write. I doubt Master Thor knows about more than a quarter of your contacts, and even he would not be so forgiving for our duplicities, not after you so openly tried to barter for freedom from him. Why did you do so, even after telling me repeatedly that the Æsir are oath-breakers? I understand why you sought with such urgency to free Iðunn, least the gray robed one detects her first. But could you not have spirited Iðunn back without the gods ever knowing? Why put yourself in their view, and unnerve Master Thor so?”

“And hence these are coded letters. So take care to use code as well, Váli. And they will be sent through special carriers, birds nimble and common enough to not cause suspicion in their flight.” Too bad to command them, one must trade shiny things in return. How fortunate that well-polished copper coins were good enough for the magpies’ greedy eyes.

“Any why must everyone always assume I have some sinister plans in the works2? Even you, my dear son?” Loki gave a look of hurt, only half feigned.

Váli looked down at his hands, abashed, “But Dada must be planning something?”

“Ah, I guess I do own you at least some explanations, as you are my son and confidant in this foreign house. First of all, I bartered not for freedom, but some semblance of equality. Freedom is but the greatest illusion in lives weaved by the Norns, this you must always remember. Second of all, I have mostly expected the bartering to fail. My rescue of Iðunn was both to save us all from one frost lord’s follies, and a test. A test that in hindsight was not worth the risk of thrusting us into the limelight. A test that once again confirmed the Æsir to be oath-breakers, and most disappointingly, Thor to be Thor. And neither the thunder god nor his ilk will stand to see the likes of us claim to be their equals. Why, it was on this difference of view that a war was fought, and we two both enslaved in its aftermath! Only Asgard alone was allowed to claim supremacy over other lands, and damn others who dared the same!” Loki gave a self-deprecating chuckle. Just as he thought, one could not wait for freedom and equality to be given. Ah, Plan B should have ever been the only plan, Loki would grasp both freedom and equality by his own hands.

“Which brings us to the third point. You are right. I do plan for something, but more in self-defence than for dark nefarious plots. Ever since you were suckling at my breasts, I had planned for when Thor finally starts to tire of us and see the truth in what he has been harbouring in his halls. A cunning animal always has more than one burrow in which to take shelter. For ones such as us this means protection offered by allies of means.”

“Do you think, son, after seeing how the mighty Thunderer cowered at the foot of his father’s throne, that should the AllFather decree us beasts to be killed or banished, that Thor would still be adequate protection for us from the gallows god’s wrath? Nay, we would need other forces to hide behind, for Thor is no longer a reliable shield, if he ever was one,” so said Loki, while looking into his son’s eyes.

Váli looked slightly distressed, “Dada, do you still think that Thor would rid of us, that he would betray us to Odin? Even after everything? Is this why you had Narfi and I pack bags with such provisions? Not for a shorter camping trip just with the three of us, but to flee in the dark of the night? What of our unborn brother Magni? Would he be made a fugitive with us, or worse birthed and cast behind?” 

Loki gave his son no answers, and turned to transform a letter into a seed for the magpies to carry instead. At first he had built connections and kept up correspondences out of precaution. Then it was due to habit. But now it was out of necessity. Now that his dreams (and this matter with Iðunn) had all but confirmed Thor would likely side against him when it mattered, just like in the many ends before.

**

Loki opened the folded blankets Frigga had gifted the children, breathed in the lingering scent of her sweet perfume, and recalled the happy and naïve years he spent under her care. But strong was the will of her husband, and the goddess herself only a war bride, that she could do nothing but bend to Odin’s wishes.

A book, its pages old and yellowed with age, tumbled out.

**

Dear Journal,

 

We talked at length today about our families, under the shade of my teacher’s leafy elm tree.

I recalled my dam’s sturdy back, and my sire’s cooking of salted fish. With fondness I talked of the ice slides they would build me, and such sights around the worlds they’d taken me to see. 

He looked envious. He recalled a wandering mother who was never there, and a father distant and strict with a heavy hand. I wonder if they ever loved each other, or was it a joining of politics, between the King of one realm, and the sibling of the King of another. My King and teacher’s sibling speaks well of the sire of his child as a man and King, not as a lover and father.

He talked of replacing his father, and bringing the golden realm to her greatest and most deserved glory. But King Bör is of such good health and still relatively young age? I fear my dear friend would have long to wait.

\- Jörð

**

Thor looked from across the halls at Loki, who sat all their children down for their morning lesson in arithmetic.

Thor’s gaze lingered on the long bony fingers, newly regenerated horns, heavy rounded belly, and sharp blue face. On Loki, who was never his. On Loki, who had ever belonged to none but Loki alone. And Thor should have learned it long ago. But oh how he wished to keep him still, a treasure all Thor’s own.

Loki glanced at the Thunderer from the corner of his eyes. Loki was never his own. Loki belonged to the Frost King by birth, the AllFather by law. Loki belonged to Jötunheimr, its snowy peaks and frozen seas, its crisp winter sky and hardy people. And Loki ever belonged to the whole nine realms, a traveller through each branch of the great Tree, to which his full being had been pledged without him even knowing.

Life would have been simpler had Loki only belonged to the Odinson, but such wasn’t so.

When Thor walked over to kiss Loki’s brows and each of the children, the frost giant asked if his Prince would join them for lunch.

To his surprised, Thor replied in the negative. The AllFather had tasks for him to perform away from home, and he would be gone for some time.

**

Dear Journal,

He cannot return for the next term of studies. King Bör is dead. So sudden and unexpected a death. So terrible an accident! I weep for Him, to lose His father at so young an age.

Perhaps I will go to Him between my lessons.

\- Jörð

**

The capital of Asgard had not seen their Prince for any extended period of time lately. He was given errands from the King, and had been carrying them out piously in the far corners of the realms.

Publicly, Odin praised his son for his service, and rewarded him higher courtly titles.

Privately, Odin admonished the Prince heavily for listening to the advices of villains of ill-intent, for questioning his father and King on the governing of the realms.

**

Dear Journal,

I asked the Dvergar to fashion a spear for Him, a spear so true that it shall never miss its targets. 

Gungnir they’ve called it, a gift fit for a newly crowned King.

\- Jörð

**

Dear Journal,

He has changed. Whether it be His Kingship, or it be something within Him all along, I know not. His realm changed with him, more prosperous and shining than ever before, sucking in the light from all realms to claim as its own, draining the well meant for all to quench the thirst of one.

She has looked at me so. But to Him I had sworn myself, and to Him alone. Poor Dear Lady, to be married to a husband who preferred the bodies of monsters instead of gods.

I wonder how different the worlds would be, had I met Her instead of Him first.

\- Jörð

**

Thor was sent away on yet another make-busy mundane task again. 

Just as well for Loki. With the oaf away, he could concentrate on studying The Book. It held so many interesting ideas, especially the hypothesis on the relationship between the Land, the King, and the Tree, and the importance in the changing seasons and natural cycles of life to the realms.

Too bad the book’s author was likely no more, and could offer no help to the Jötnar Prince. Loki had always imagined himself a Prince burdened with glorious purpose in his much beleaguered childhood, to be tested by fate and scorned by his lessers until his true destiny was revealed. Now that dreams of the past and the Norns had all but confirmed his purpose, he found it too heavy a burden to bear alone.

**

Dear Friend,

If you are reading this, then my most heartfelt congratulations, for being the one that She had chosen to continue my research. You are fortunate to have such a lady hold you in such high esteem.

And my deepest apologies, for tasking you with such an arduous labour. How I wish I could still help you, and pool the knowledge of two into a focus of one.

But take heart, that the Tree is not alone in its forest, and many of its neighbours healthy giants reaching for the sky. I still hold the belief that with proper care, it too will grow past its sapling stage, and bloom with an endless crown of leaves instead of rotting in its infancy in unbroken cycles.

\- Jörð

**

Váli was worried to see Thor further and further removed from the court of Asgard, and the Crown Prince’s new titles, while glorious, all but stripped him of true military command. And from the brewing storms overhead each time the Thunderer was called to audience with the AllFather, even Þrúðr had the inklings that all was not well between her father and grandfather. Narfi was simply displeased that Thor was not there to play with them. Where is Thor? When is Thor coming home? The boy asked often of his dam and siblings.

Váli also wondered why Loki still stayed instead of leaving Asgard like he had planned. (Not that the boy was complaining.) Loki simply pointed at his protruding stomach and went back to his Book, muttering about Plan C.

Though the boy was glad to see Loki becoming more affectionate with Thor, each time the Thunderer was actually home. Dada must have missed Master just as badly as the rest of them.

**

“When I am regent, you will be my consort and advisor. I could at least see to this. You are a Prince, and I would give you a throne,” Thor said to Loki one evening just before bed.

“No thanks. I only hope you won’t wake one morning and realize you’ve let a monster into your home like your father did. And I hope you would from time to time lend me your ears, but I’d rather not be thrust into the limelight to take blame for you.” In a different time, Loki would have been delighted by the offer, but he knew better now.

“Also, WHEN you are regent. The AllFather is mighty, birthed of the immoveable mountain and the ocean’s ceaseless ebbs and tides. He will forever be regent, and you forever the Crown Prince. So I fear I won’t even get to be the king’s advisor from the shadows.”

At Thor’s crestfallen face, Loki tisked, “Fret not, Thunderer. There is no need to bribe me with promises. Even had I been freed, I would have had nowhere better to go but back to you. You’ve treated me squarely for the most part. You are a good father, a decent Prince. Our sons will be great, so that even Asgard won’t be able to deny them. For now, I will have to be content. Magni kicks. He is asking for you.”

Thor carefully pillowed his head on Loki’s abdomen, and tapped the signals for greetings back at his son as Loki had taught him3. He thought of his father’s downturned mouth, the ravens’ watchful stares, and the deceptively slim golden threads. For now, he too, would have to be content.

**

For his family’s circumstances to change, the realms must change. 

For the realms to change, Asgard must change.

For Asgard to change, its attitudes and policies and governance must change.

For attitudes and policies and governance to change, its ruler must change. 

For the ruler to change in this world without natural death…

But that way lays madness.

Lest he commit patricide and be labelled a kin-slayer, for now, he too, would have to be content.

**

The sun rises, the moon hides.  
The gulls cry at the ocean’s ceaseless tides.  
Men born and grow and toil and die.  
And The Ash Tree rises only to burn again.

**

 

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **   
  
1\. Odin thought the little beast planned for this. Loki thought the AllFather should give the Norns credits where credits were due. How in Hel could he have planned for that? And had he planned it, it would have certainly involved a much more pleasant locale, much more comfortable accommodations, and a lot less mass violence and violation upon his own person.

2\. Loki could understand the AllFather’s suspicions, the mistrust from the rest of Asgard, even Thor’s uncertainties. But he was surprised when little Menglöð wrote to ask if his Prince meant to organize a new war against Asgard4, and flabbergasted when gentle Gerðr queried if Loki plotted the long game of setting Odin and his son against each other. Should he do the same with his own two Vanir lords, and sew discord amongst Asgard’s most valued allies’ halls? Or should he be even more ambitious, and turn both father and son against their Æsir friends?

Another conflict was near inevitable, and needed no push from Loki. But he’d rather have control over armies than be pulled along by violent tides like he had in childhood. And Odin has done a fine job alienating his son all by himself, with Loki being a factor but far from being the sole cause. But it did bring such delights to Loki’s heart, to see the house of Odin troubled so. Served the old man right. 

Perhaps he would tell Menglöð and Gerðr that all were within his cunning plans all along. Such high expectations his subjects had for their lost Ice Prince, that he’d hate to disappoint.

And when the time comes, ah for it would come, both would be good allies to have. And as they both have sensible enough head on their shoulders, it would be easy to convince them that an Æsir Prince known to be sympathetic towards the Jötnar would be a far better candidate for the Golden Throne than a full frost giant. The Æsir would fight to the last drop of their blood before they’d allow the latter, while by playing their cards right, the former would have all the willing love and support he would ever need, even if many of his new policies favoured Jötunheimr.

3\. Aka Morse code.

4\. Excerpt from a letter of Menglöð’s:

“…my father had, after divining your silent instructions, spread the seeds you have passed through my husband to us, and gathered the best sorcerers across the land to study and replicate them. Though we have yet to reach full understanding of Jörð’s lost art, may his spirit watch over our land, what we’ve managed had done well to replenish our realm’s depleted stores. The survival rate of new-born children had much improved. My father estimates that we will reach 1/5 of pre-war population within 10 decades, which is heartening.

My husband had been open and enthusiastic in the sharing of his arts, and we have recalled many fallen warriors back to animation.

Ever vigilant, with an army raised from the past, and an army to be birthed in the future, we eagerly await your instructions and directions. For even far-away, you are forever the first Prince of Jötunheimr, and my hold is ever pledged to the greater good of the realm…”

Loki read the letter again before burning it, and wondered how in the nine had old Fjölsviðr divined instructions for the building of two armies from a bag seeds meant as an introduction gift for a new groom. Loki had hoped to use those seeds as leverage with a Jötnar lord himself, but had given it away on foolish sentiment when he realized the promised bride/groom was little Menglöð, and recalled how old Fjölsviðr’s more temperate hold was called the breadbasket of their frozen realm, where these seeds would yield the most result.

Ah, such was the power of the Norns. He planned for no legion, yet more than one had readily gathered because of him. Just as well. These legions, loyal to him as long as the lost Prince’s return to power would further their common interests, would prove their uses5 when the inevitable clash between Odin and his son comes.

5\. Loki’s return letter praised Fjölsviðr in his devotion to his realm, recalled fond childhood memories with Menglöð, thanked them both for carrying out their Prince’s will so diligently, detailed several plans on the quiet execution of Helblindi and the poisoning of Laufey, as well as contained the proposal to start a council of lords.

To Gerðr he sent his gratitude and encouragement, and promised to spread rumours on how Vanaheimr and Álfheimr had grown tired of prostrating to Asgard.   
  
**

**Part 2 End**

Epilogue and Extras to follow.


	39. Epilogue: Forest and Ends of Time

_**Epilogue: Forest and Ends of Time** _

“Now Váli, Narfi, listen well. To be a truly successful seiðmaðr, you must have a concept of the workings of the worlds. The Nine Realms that we live in aren’t the end all and be all. First, there are other realms that do not hang upon the Yggdrasill. Second, there are many past versions of the Yggdrasill.” Loki sat his sons down in his study one day, after soundproofing the room with a muffling spell.

“A mediocre sorcerer can manipulate probability within his own reality, but a truly great one could reach across the veils of space and time to snatch up the bounties of many other worlds. But one must not do it often, for the price can become too high to be paid.”

Váli casted about for his sister. ‘Why is Þrúðr not here for the lesson?”

“Because she’d be snoring by now. You’ll see her soon enough when Thor takes you to bash things,” Loki rolled his eyes. Damn Asgardian thunder gods and their wiles upon hapless frost giants.

“Dada my head hurts,” whined Narfi.

“Good, it is supposed to. Mine did too when I first became elucidated. Now concentrate,” Loki was the very picture of non-sympathy.

“So, there is more than one Great Ash?” Váli scrunched up his brows.

“Hmm, passable analogy. Although The Ash is not a tree. But while we are following along this vein… Think of the worlds as a forest. So first, there are different trees, perhaps all of them are ashes, but they would be different ashes. Perhaps on is an elm, but like an ash, it is still a tree. Now second, some plots of land in the forest could be taken over by corruption and sickness, and here different trees could grow over time. This is the very situation with our own Tree. So say the first tree grew in a bad plot, took sick and died. A second tree would spring from its seed or root, a successor of the first. And when the second dies, a third would spring from it, and so on. And between all these successive trees, there would be great differences, but also some ever-unchanged constants.”

“The great Yggdrasill can die?” Narfi was distraught. 

“Yes, like all things,” answered Loki. That boy was far too soft for a son of giants.

“How did you come by so much wondrous knowledge, Dada?” Váli cut in.

“By the education in my youth, The Book, and remembering from Before. And if you boys actually had the self-control to not take food and drink from strangers, you’d start to remember too. Your other brother is (was/will be) so much better at this than you two.”

“Other brother? Little Magni in your tummy?” Narfi asked.

“No.”

“One of our lost brothers?” Váli pondered.

“Also no. He has yet to come. When he does, Móði will be his name. One of the constants that I’ve mentioned. Thor will help bring him to us.”

“Ehhh?” said Narfi.

“Dada please, too much information,” said Váli, who did not wish to think of such things (parents never have sex, ever. Although, does this mean they will stay in Asgard a good while longer?).

“Focus children! And Váli, be reasonable, I can’t very well eat Thor’s heart now can I? Þrúðr would be most upset.” Loki tapped his little blackboard, to bring his sons’ attentions back before they got derailed from the workings of the multiverse to Jötunn reproductive anatomy.

“What other constants are there? Other than little brothers?” Narfi piped up, the mystery of how Thor can help bring them one temporarily forgotten.

“As I’ve said, many constants. For example, there is always a sick Tree. There are always the nine. There is always a sky god. And there is always a monster, who is forever cursed to bring the Tree down as it withers and rots, to make space for a new one to grow again.”

And the monster will always love its sky god, for being kind and steadfast and trusting, for reaching out when all turned away, for his light and integrity and unshakable convictions that its own wretched self could never possess, even as it drowned in equal jealousy and spite, affection and yearning. But Loki did not say this out-loud.

**

When Magni was old enough to ride and hunt, Móði came as Loki predicted, a healthy and happy child. The call for his dam was the first word upon his lips, and the name of his sire the second, for which Thor was overjoyed.

But when the night was quiet, and the moon hid behind her veils, the newly reborn Chronicler (iteration 1179) tugged on his chaos god’s (Lóðurr of YGGt #2981) sleeve, and said, “I cannot believe my brothers partook the banquet of the dead and forgot again! But it heartens me to see that you’ve started to remember, my Lord. And it is a great honour to be your child this time around. How fares our unfortunate Tree? I do hope we’ll be able to spend longer and more pleasant1 times together with Thor than last2.”

**

**NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **  
  
1\. Narfi’s entrails splattered everywhere again last time, and Váli had looked most unbecoming as a canine-shaped pincushion stuck with arrows and spears. It was most distressing, almost more distressing than having father watch impassively as Loki was dragged away.

2\. The Norns spoke of a thing called “Good End” that would lead to a world truly renewed and purified, a thriving and changing world without the need for Ragnarök. A world growing on the giant Tree with a crown of leaves that Jörð had dreamed about. Móði had long ceased to believe in it, choosing to live in the moment. But Loki had a much more foolish heart, and he reached for it again and again and again and again.  
  
**

**Save?**   
**Restart?**   
~~**Exit?** ~~

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More extras to come.


	40. Extras: Blood and Inheritance

When Thor announced that his yet-born son would share the inheritance of his lands and deeds along with his daughter, the populace clamoured.

The courts objected most vehemently, for how could the bastard son of a blue-skinned and well-shared whore be officially made a prince?

But Thor shrugged off loud objections, whispers, and disapproving looking only as Thor could.

**

The clamour quieted to chatter, chatter to whispers, and whispers to almost nothing when household after household, many of them prestigious, received unnamed letters in the night.

The letters spoke of unmarked dirt mounds and remote waters, strewn ashes and silent forests, hidden little graves filled with half-formed little bones, hidden little lodges filled with the patter of little feet, illegitimate bastards given shares of their fathers’ estates, favoured slaves and concubines with horns atop their heads, and beloved mothers who may be hiding under a different skin. 

Loki twirled his quill and sent out another magpie. The Æsir and the Jötnar have intermarried for so many generations. Old habits had this way of latching onto you, making them so ever hard to shake1. And Thor had been so generous and firm in granting Magni both freedom and station, that Loki hated to see all his efforts sullied by ill public opinion.

**

Þrymr gave a long bellowing laugh as he sat in his half-repaired halls2. The news of a Prince of Asgard’s birth had passed through Värmland.

Funny some called Prince Magni a half-blood under their breaths. Addle-minded fools who knew not simple fractions3! 

Þrymr was old and his memory long. He remembered Bestla’s sharp wit and stinging hand from when a younger (and skinnier) Þrymr still studied under Bestla’s sibling Mímir, and he remembered Jörð’s kind smile as the one favoured by the earth stroked his belly and sang to the godling4 within. Ah bright Jörð, who shunned poor old Þrymr5 for a faithless wretch half begotten from another race.

And woe to Mímir’s people hence. Had the old philosopher King’s star pupil stayed, the tides of the last humiliating war would have turned very differently indeed.

**

One day Thor found four bags, one large and three smaller, all stuffed full of suppliers of the sort that one would need on a camping trip, gathering dust in the back corner of a closet6.

He wondered who had put them there, and reflected that Magni would soon be due for a camping trip of his own. Ah what a lively band they would make this time.

**

Odin gave the command of the last of his son’s troops to his own two brothers, Thor’s warrior uncles who made their names in the last two wars.

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) ** :  **  
  
1\. Thor was right. He should have just assumed that everyone was a Jötunn.

2\. Þrymr never did manage to get that insurance money.

3\. Magni was very confused when instead of attacking him and the good horse, Gold-Mane, that his father had gifted him against grandfather’s wishes, a well-dressed frost giant had kneeled and hailed him as Prince Near-Pure-Blood7. Then they all went drinking together and had a grand time.

4\. And I trust by now we all know who that godling was. He was quite a main character in this story.

5\. It was a literal slap to the face. A literal slap. Maybe he had came on a bit too strongly then? Þrymr reflected.

6\. Procrastination is in the blood of all beings, even gods and giants.

7\. Do you know what the correct fraction for Magni’s heritage should be by now, Dear Readers?  
  
**


	41. Extras: Kenning

_**Extras: Kenning** _

The royal Princess of Asgard rode with her loyal friends to the border of her grandfather’s land, for adventure and fame and glory.

Her dark-haired and slender slave was not amongst her retinue of golden warriors and hunters.

**

When Thor took Þrúðr to meet the Warriors Three, his best of friends, Þrúðr became fast companions with Volstagg’s hearty sons1 and boisterous daughters. She went often to see them and play with them. Save for the first few times, for these outings Váli almost never showed, citing one reason or another that prevented his going. Þrúðr was disappointed, but thought it the norm, for Loki never came along with Thor whenever the Thunderer went on adventures with the Warriors Three.

Sometimes Þrúðr wondered where her brother went to and what he did. For more and more frequently Váli would disappear for days, and return silent and pensive, as if burdened by heavy things.

But as she had her own quests and travels, it only stood to reason that Váli would also have his own. And every time they returned, they would each carry at least one gift for the other, and stay together for days, only the two of them, as if making up for lost time.

Had Þrúðr been more astute, she would have realized that despite her love for action and adventure and loud things, these quiet times with her quiet little brother were some of the best times she’d had.

**

The Princess of Asgard and her boon companions alighted at the local market, for they heard there were frost giants about the town. Not invaders or raiders, but a caravan of fur traders and pedlars.

The ban on trade with Jötunheimr was never lifted, despite the Crown Prince’s appeals to his father. Although the actual law was rarely enforced these years, and merchants from both realms grew bolder in their illicit dealings.

Þrúðr herself was not there to enforce her grandfather’s rule, but to arm wrestle with a giant, for she had heard there was a famous strongman amongst the travelling merchants. She would both test her own mettle and barter for some wares and local delicacies from Jötunheimr. They would make fine gifts for Váli, who had a strange palate2.

**

Three matches Þrúðr played, and three matches won. After collecting both winnings and congratulations, the Princess ordered mead and food from the local inn, and invited gods, locals, and giants all to partake in the small feast. All praised the gold-haired one for her generosity, and sat down to share a toast over the sporting competition.

Their talks drifted from travel and trade to home and hearth, and back to acts of valour and daring ventures, and finally to the current happenings of both worlds.

The locals asked of news from the Jötnar capital, for gossiping about royalty was a much beloved pastime for commoners. With Laufey breathing his last breaths, crown prince Helblindi missing for years, would prince Byleistr assume the throne? How would this affect trade? Would the border towns still remain peaceful and safe?

“Nay,” said the strongman, leader of the Jötnar merchants. “Prince Byleistr cares not to rule. He’d rather hunt and game and pursue Jötnar youths and Vanir maidens than toil and govern.”

“Who rules you then? Is Laufey so fearsome a King, that he holds Jötunheimr together still even near death?” Alaric son of Volstagg asked.

“Laufey was a fearsome King, but now he is just a frail and sick man, gasping about his glory days. We have been governed of late by a coalition of regional lords and Jarls, under the watchful eyes of the Shadow King.”

“The Shadow King? What an ominous sounding character!” a visiting farmer gaped.

“Aye and nay. Some say the Shadow King is the seiðr of nature given form. Others say he is wise Mímir reborn. More say he is a god and demon crawled forth from Hel’s dark embrace. But his rule has been fair, his fields plentiful, his cities repaired, and the sons of Jötunheimr could finally be proud again. So good farmer, despite the shrouds of mystery surrounding my King, call him not ominous, for an ominous man would not do all this for his realm.”

Þrúðr wondered if this was why the lords and nobles back at her grandfather’s shining halls have grown more and more nervous these recent years. But here she was, sharing table and drinks with the very giants her elders feared.

**

The giants complimented the Asgardian mead, then, like everyone else, complimented Þrúðr’s famous hair.

That best favourite thing of the Half Frost Prince3, they had called it.

Strange, Þrúðr thought she knew all the kennings for gold. Her hair had been compared to Ægir's Fire, Needles of Glasir, Freyja's Tears, Seed of Fýris-Plain, and Draupnir's Drop and Rain. And gold had in turn been compared with her hair. Was this a new phrase the skalds had come up with? What was this new kenning’s story?

**

  
**NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**

1\. Váli never knew he could hate anyone with such venom, thinking such strong feelings the domain of his dam. But oh how he hated, hated, hated Alaric and Rolfe Volstaggson, hated their laughter, readily given hugs, and open smiles, even when some of these gestures of goodwill and friendship were directed at him, even when he knew them to be simple men.

Váli dared not think what he would do, should he be forced to spend any more time in their presence, even knowing that they were no threat. Though their father was a great warrior, he was still less than even a minor lord in station.

Váli dared not think what he would do, when the Princess of Asgard is betrothed for marriage to someone befitting her high status. He dared not think what he would do.

2\. Whales and ice worms, walrus cheese and musk oxen lard, seaweeds and strange berries and tree bark, together with Váli, Þrúðr had tried them all. The only thing she didn’t like was the smoked baby seal, not for their cuteness in life, but their ability to give Þrúðr rashes in death. Allergies Váli had said. Perhaps hereditary? Seeing how Loki once mentioned how Thor, a lover of all meat, could not stomach seal either4.

3\. And it was a thankless job. Sneaking between the realms like a thief in the night. Arguing until he was literally blue in the face with old stubborn frost lords. Teased and abused by self-proclaimed uncles (aunts?), and beset upon by their overly energetic broods. And why did he have to come up with details for the new tax reform? Was this not the Frost King’s job? Váli couldn’t wait to go home. How unfair that Þrúðr must be having a most relaxing and stress-free time.

And Loki, oh Loki. Why did he have to blab about that thing with Þrúðr’s hair to Þrymr? Þrymr! He thought his dam hated Þrymr! Now everyone knew! And then the Princess would surely also know! She would strangle her favorite thrall5. Yes throttle him and bury his corpse behind the practice grounds, if she didn’t feed him to the dogs first.

So distressed was the Prince by how his secret became an open secret so fast, that he had downed six cups of strong tea in quick succession, yet without any success in calming his nerves.

4\. The gardener sighed as he gathered up his dried herbs. Of all things to pass down to his offspring, it had to be his allergies instead of his intellect.

Oh, but they also have your open heart, for which I am glad, the young Queen beside him said.

5\. Þrúðr’s obliviousness rivaled that of her father’s. And thus she found out about this particular secret much, much later than Váli projected. 

It was on a bright and beautiful day, under a fuchsia Álfheimr sky with fluffy clouds, that the First Princess of Asgard had violently and most publicly tried to throttle the Crown Prince of Jötunheimr, but for a completely different reason than the Prince originally thought.

Then, to the horror of her entourage and amidst cries along the lines of horrible scandal, ruined for marriage, curse the scheming frost vipers, see how our Prince Thor’s kindness was repaid, are we to ally with beasts now, and the few but no less loud catcalls from the small Jötnar delegation, the Princess bent the Prince down like a maiden and snogged him6, 7 most soundly.

6\. And it was a great scandal, how the Princess of Asgard almost got to second base in public. Some blamed it on the spiked Álfheimr berry juices, but Þrúðr knew that was not the case at all. Even if she utterly failed at her lessons in magic and subterfuge from Loki, from her nurse (surrogate parent, teacher, anti-moral compass) she had learn one thing most surely. She did what she wanted.

7\. The first thought Váli had, when he saw Þrúðr across the hall, was that the Jötunn administrative assistant for the Frost Prince was fired! Fired!

The second thought Váli had, was he was so dead. Good thing he had already written out his will to divide his paltry belongings.

The third thought, well, Váli was a bit too busy to have coherent thoughts by that point.  
  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some doodles  
> 


	42. Extras: Siblings

_**Extras: Siblings** _

Svipdag took his heir Ælla and the child of a family friend to Midgard for a day trip. The Midgardians had become quite the curious little creatures who made equally curious things, the family friend who sent them said.

They went to this establishment called an “amusement park”. The children all but ran wild, and Svipdag was ever the indulgent guardian and father as he stood in line with the energetic brats for ride after ride.

When the little group came to the water slides, however, the family friend’s child was hesitant, and refused to go down the slide even as Ælla scampered on for his second go. But a reedy young man1 came up to the scared boy, ruffled his flame red hair and held out his own water-splashed arms.

“The water is nothing to be afraid of, my little friend. I am a worker at this park. With your guardian’s permission, I’ll hold you, and we can both go down the slide together,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes.

Under Svipdag’s watchful eyes, the young man held the boy and did just that, and squeals of fear soon turned to squeals of laughter.

The young man then helped Svipdag purchase two ice-cream cones, each topped with generous scoops. He handed them to the children, and watched them lick at the sweet frozen treats with a smile, all the while sweeping back his dark wet hair. But he froze when two shadows swooped overhead, and quickly bid the small group farewell2.

When the necromancer went to recommend the park worker to his manager, the matronly mortal wench only looked befuddled, as she could not recall such an employee there.

A pair of ravens circled overhead, and cawed.

That night, Narfi dreamed of deep deep water, which was no longer so frightening, and giant glistening scales on a long slithering body, dotted here and there with what looked like peck wounds3. Longer than Midgard’s longest water slide, it went on and on and on, until it circled the world.

**

With his husband and child away, Menglöð could finally focus on his training in communing with the dead.

As he sat cross-legged on his sire’s bear fur rug and breathed out both his consciousness and spirit, he saw in glimpses a wide grey sky, equally grey mountains, a grey castle with pointy little battlements, and a radiant garden.

The sight of the garden, so incongruent to all else he saw, jerked him back to his self. Had he made a mistake? Had he travelled to some other realm than Hel’s silent domain?

The second day, the lord of Gastropnir received two plain packages with no return address. One contained a leather-bound booklet of considerable thickness, filled with instructions on plant care and cultivation in a messy script. Another contained a bone white little tea set, along with a tome on the best tea plants from across the nine and how to find them.

Please forward to little Prince Váli with love, from one tea connoisseur to another, the card that fell out said.

**

When Magni was older, he travelled far and wide. For it was his father who said that a man should walk the world on his own two feet, and his dam who said while knowledge from books enriched a man, it was his own experience that made him wise. His grandmother draped a hand-weaved travelling cloak over his shoulders and wished him well. His grandfather said nothing, for there was nothing between them to be said.

And Fjölnir said his handsome young friend would always be welcome in his mead halls in Swithiod, but Magni had always found a way to pull the young king away from his duties onto adventures in the worlds beyond, leaving the governance of the hold to the king’s soft-spoken dam4. 

So it was on one such journey, when Magni first tried to walk between the worlds with his friend king and beloved horse in tow, that they slipped through the branches of the Great Ash, and ended up quite unplanned in one of its many remote tree holes. Its insides were filled with brambles and briar as wide as tree trunks, upon their thorns many wayward parasites of the Tree were impaled, and the air was filled with a thick white mist as opaque as a solid wall.

The young king with his father’s shining sword, and the Prince with his magic cut through the thick brambles and even thicker mist, only to find another deeper hallow within. Venturing forth, both young men were more than surprised to see chained to the bark of the Tree a great wolf, his paws nailed to the white wood below, his great arched back pushing against the ceiling despite his crouched form. The teeth that gleamed in Magni’s mage light were sharper than the sharpest enchanted swords, and the great ruby eyes that opened to greet the wayward visitors were round like blood moons. The wolf grinned a manic grin, and Magni was sure that its great maw would gladly swallow both the sun and moon whole, had there not being a sword running through the wolf’s lower and upper gums, pinning its mouth shut.

Gold-Mane, while a brave war horse of good breed, whinnied as his knees buckled, and bolted back towards the way from which they came. His owner however was of a more curious sort, and walked forward instead of back like most sensible men would. And his owner’s companion was in possession of a heart both soft and foolish. Instead of fear, the Swithiod king’s chest was filled with pity.

“You poor creature,” Fjölnir exclaimed, “Who would be so heartless as to deny you so, when you should by right be a magnificent predator bounding across the Ash’s white branches, your howls the proud winter wind, and your great strides the very steps of the wild hunt!”

The wolf’s imprisonment reminded the king of golden chains that had bound until of recent the limbs and freedom of another, of blue skin and raven hair, of soft hands and lullaby songs, and a fair face just like his own.

Magni looked to his friend in understanding, recalling the tale of how Fjölnir’s own dam had been denied his freedom for so long. But the Prince was also a more cautious and distrusting sort, who was taught from youth that those who were pitiful were not always lacking in characters that were despicable.

He asked of the wolf, “O great hunter, for what and by whom were you chained here, in the crack between worlds, hidden from sight and hearing?”

To which the reply was a snarl and a rumble, a splatter of blood from the torn maw trying to move, and a surprisingly articulate answer echoing directly in the two young lords’ minds, “My crimes were naught but the crime of my birth, and my jailers were the worst of oath-breakers and cowards across the nine. Yet on both of you I smell their blood and the blood of my own. The frozen realm in duress birthed me, and the golden realm in fear bound me. To which realm do you owe your loyalties, curious little half-bred whelps?”

The two friends each drew a deep breath, to find the wolf not a wolf but a Jötunn brother. Had their own forms not favoured their godly sires but their monstrous dams, would it be them bound just like this wolf in their own caves? 

With the wolf the Prince made a bargain. They would try to set him free, if the wolf would swear on what is dearest to him to bring no harm to the two travellers, for despite their different fates and fortunes, they were still countrymen and brothers.

The wolf closed his eyes and bared his throat, and bowed as best as he could to his only visitors in a few thousand years.

Magni banished the sword with his magic. Fjölnir removed the nails by prying at them with Freyr’s magic sword. But the fetters binding the wolf would barely loosen, no matter how the young Prince and king hacked and pulled at them.

Magni swore in frustration, and Fjölnir despaired, but the wolf shook his great head and thanked them both, for they’ve already brought him more comfort and succor than he was allowed since his initial imprisonment.

Fjölnir promised the unfortunate wolf the best cuts of game and sweetest mead from his own cellars, and Magni marked down the cave’s location on the Tree. Both pledged to visit the wolf again, for more terrible than pain and confinement was loneliness, and both king and Prince knew the bitterness of isolation through the blood of their dams.

I’ll see you at the end of the world, little brother, the wolf said to Magni’s departing back, knowing that the travellers will not be able to find this cave again.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  
  
1\. Later both Svipdag and the children would recall the youth as more “long” than “tall”, for some strange reason.

2\. Huginn and Muninn Mk III, enforcement model, much more aggressive and durable than Mk II, recon model.

3\. It was well worth it for a play day with a little brother.

4\. Gerðr was quite exasperated. It was a full-time-job to suckle little Frið, now to add the governing of his elder son’s hold to his already hectic schedule. A good thing then that Swithiod was the richest and most peaceful out of all of Freyr’s holds, and the Vanr himself5 a much better father compared to the last time.

5\. Freyr’s sword, enchanted so that it will shine when powerful giants are near, and crafted so that it will fight the Jötnar by itself when wielded by the brave, shone nearly all the time now.

It shone when the Vanir Lord sat at moot with his sometimes consort and all-times political ally. It shone at state dinners with his visiting adult son. It shone when said son’s friend, Prince Magni, came for visits both official and private. It shone when his younger son crawled towards the sword to inspect it and chew upon the scabbard with newly grown sharp little teeth.

It shone the brightest when the Thunderer himself came, his favourite thrall6 in tow.

6\. Freyr imagined the Thunderer’s thrall to be a most fair creature, like Gerðr, perhaps, to have captivated the Asgard Prince so. But the Jötunn was tall and thin and full of edges, with a too-big forehead, scars dotting his lips and peaking from under his clothes, and a calculating look in his eyes.

But then many had called Gerðr with his cold eyes and cold skin and cold shoulder a monster, and questioned how Freyr could lay and beget not one, but two bastards with someone with a carnivore’s teeth and a beast’s claws, whose very breath was the winter mist and whose touch left trails of frost.

Yet spring would forever follow winter, to turn into summer and fall and winter again, the land a place to be birthed and grow and give birth and rest, only to at the seasons’ renewal awake again.  
  
**


	43. Extras: Gossip of Birds

_**Extras: Gossip of Birds** _

Heard you not of the Ravens, the Magpies say  
They who build no more nests  
Hatch no more eggs  
Raise not the young  
Care not for the old  
But here and there you’d hear their calls  
Hoarse voices between the trees

Saw you not of the Ravens, the Arctic Geese say  
They who have no thought or memory  
Fly not their own paths  
Rise not with the sun  
Rest not with the moon  
But here and there you’d see their shapes  
Great black shadows in the sky

Fear you not of the Ravens, the other birds say  
They who no longer carry the scent of death nor decay  
Suddenly one day their lively murders gone  
In pairs mechanically they forever fly  
Puppets jerked by invisible strings  
Huginn and Muninn be all their names

**

“Wôdan! Wôdan! Come!” Jörð called out across the glen.

“What is it? And I told you to not call me by that name,” a young man brushed aside some drooping leaves to join his companion.

“But it is a fine name amongst our people, and I like it better than your other one,” Jörð pouted. “But look, a baby raven!” The Jötunn held out his hands, and there, in his cusped palms, an ugly little bird covered with the start of a growth of black fuzz and a gaping mouth stared back at Wôdan.

“Come help lift me up, so I may return this little girl back to her parents,” Jörð enthused.

“Why?” Enthusiasm clearly not shared.

Jörð tilted his head, “Why not? All children want to be with their parents. We might even make some new friends this way.”

Wôdan’s thoughts took an ugly turn upon the mentioning of parents and their children. All children want to be with their parents, but the reverse is not always true. For what was the want of a boy, when the good of an entire realm or the lure of adventure and freedom called1?

But since it was Jörð who asked, the young man complied and lent his broad shoulders and a steadying hand.

**

Huginn and Muninn circled and cawed, asking for Jörð, refusing their master’s calls.

Disobedient mortal birds, who did they think they were, to refuse the chief of all gods? No matter, he would make them better and stronger. He would make them obey.

**  
  
 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **

1\. Hey, Odin’s got to get his A+ Parenting skills from somewhere.  
  
**


	44. Extras: Uproar Remix

_**Extras: Uproar Remix** _

This is a somewhat detailed meeting minute of a conference between bureaucrats that happened before Váli had his first French Kiss, and after Narfi finally learned how to swim.

**

Had they been sitting at actual tables with chairs, instead of on fur pelts strung across the floor, Váli was sure his head would have been hitting the table very frequently very hard by now. But as Þjazi was a true ice blood traditionist, and stuck to the most traditional of decors for his traditional halls, the young Prince was spared the embarrassment of finding his horns getting accidentally stuck in a flat wooden surface meant for writing and eating1, instead of for hitting one’s head upon in frustration.

“…and I must ask you again, Loki’s whelp, why we should even consider aiding the Æsir Prince instead of taking Asgard for our own, after both he and his accursed father tired each other out in war! If they would even war like your dam predicted, that is! After all, haven’t the whole nine realms seen for themselves how the mighty Thunderer had been naught but an obedient cur to his father’s will these past years? Running errands like a good boy for his old man?” Þjazi exclaimed.

“Because, good Lord Þjazi,” Váli resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose as his headache grew, “I have lived with said Thunderer since birth, and as a result, am privy to information not known to public. Thor’s relationship with the gallows god had deteriorated over recent years, and his discords with his father have grown more heated. I believe all seated know that there are things a man would say in his private mead hall, that he would never tell otherwise. My dam is sure that the start of a war of succession is but a matter of time.”

“So the house of Odin would war! But why should we of the frost aid the son? Oh, could it be because your dam cools the Odinson’s bed in the summers, and warms it when winters come2, a kept broodmare for the house of Thor3? And you, little half-Prince, is actually a slave to his Master in both title and spirit, here to solicit our aid to further his Master’s cause? Or is it his daughter’s favours that you seek? Do you service she of the golden hair just as thoroughly as your dam the Odinson?” Þjazi sneered and slammed his giant stone goblet onto the cold floor. All the other lords and Jarls paused in their eating and drinking, and waited to see how their whelp Prince would handle this discord.

Váli raised his own goblet to the old frost lord, “It would do you well for you to watch your tongue when you speak of your King, for I would not intercede should Loki decide to rip that offending appendage out. And say that we do what you propose, good Þjazi, and strike Asgard when both the AllFather and his son are weakened. Then what? Do we slay all the Æsir? Their people are numerous, their tempers hot, their strength of arms with us more than evenly matched, and amongst them many share our own blood. Are you ready to flood the realms with their blood too? Or perhaps instead of killing, you would make thralls out of the Æsir kind? I was born into slavery, yet here I sit in council to talk of undermining Asgard’s interests with you all. And need I remind you of the tunnels and weak points our enslaved brothers have built under and into Asgard’s walls and infrastructures4? How do you prevent the Æsir from doing the same to us? Most importantly, have you given thoughts to what would happen, if the Æsir, divided by internal strife, were suddenly presented with an external enemy in us, us who are still recovering from the last failed war? As for the golden haired war-maiden, who had been nothing but friendly towards giants, by the blood of Mímir in my veins I can vouch for her honour. Can you vouch the same for the apple keeper Iðunn5?”

Þjazi grew purple in the face and drew a deep breath. But before he could let more of his opinions be known, it was Þrymr of all people who spoke up, “Þjazi old friend, compromise not your dignity arguing over a lost debate with whelps. Age should aid in the growth of wisdom, not addle one’s memory. Or have you lived caring only for your own hold so long, that you grew oblivious to other happenings across the nine?”

Here Þrymr spread his hands, and gestured across the room, “The youngsters sitting at this council here may not know, but us old stubborn fools remember well. Odin did not suddenly one day spring forth from Bör of the mountains as if a rock, even though most of the nine only knew him to be Bör’s son. Why his dam was our own old King Mímir’s sibling, Bestla the wandering one.”

“I know not what twisted the one-eyed one to hate his own race6, but he was like our Váli and Menglöð and quite a few others, a half son of Jötunheimr, although raised by the Æsir instead of his dam.”

“And here is something even less known that I have not spoken of to anyone, for it touches a deep wound within my own heart7. The line of Jörð lives.”

The room erupted at this proclamation. Jörð, who rejected lords, warriors, scholars, and minor kings, had left offspring?

“Why have you not told us this before? A child of the earth lives, while we struggled so long in poverty and hunger!” one young lord stood and pointed accusingly at Þrymr.

“I know you too have courted him and failed, but that is no cause to withhold such information!” another Jarl, around Þrymr’s own age and amongst Jörð’s many suitors, also called out.

Even Váli could not hold on to silence, “My good Jarl, you have stirred the pot, and now must give the full tale, if you will, to us all.”

“Calm, calm my friends,” Þrymr said. “I told none, for Jörð himself had bade me keep his confidence. And for those of you who think an issue of Jörð’s would revitalize our land with knowledge and seiðr, you will soon be sourly disappointed. Before I say more, all in this room must swear to breathe not a single word of my tale to anyone else. For what I think Loki has in plan to work, this must be first kept a secret from the rabbles, then slowly released to them, in a manner that they find agreeable.”

All in the council of lords swore, their curiosity piqued, and Þrymr started his tale, “I tell this tale now, for I too, have finally accepted that the one favoured by the earth must be no more. I still search, but for his grave instead of him. And like all tales, it will be told. Before Jörð disappeared, he appeared once to me, to say farewell to a classmate before a long journey, and to entrust me as the beta tester for his portable rainbow bridge8, with which Värmland had been endowed the power to pull itself across worlds. He was heavy with child then. The knave who got him so, was none other than damned Odin himself! Our deputy King Loki has slipped from Asgard a while ago, to personally confirm with me, who amongst us knew Jörð best, of the origin of a journal that he now possesses. The book without a doubt authentically belonged to Jörð, from the brilliance of the attached research, the horridness of the near-illegible handwriting, the gushing naïve sentimentality oozing from the passages, to the familiar signatures dotting the pages! And it has all but confirmed that the child he carried back then was none other than Thor!”

The whole room erupted again, louder than before9. When they finally calmed, Váli, who hid his shock behind an impassive face, turned to Þrymr, “I have often wondered why Thor held some intuitive power over fertility, and why you would refer to him with the kenning of lightning birthed when sky struck the earth. I guess now we all know.”

“So Thor is also a son of Jötunheimr by blood. And my dam has Thor’s ears,” Váli reflected, his upset at Loki’s omission of Thor’s birth temporarily forgotten10. “While the Æsir would balk at Jötnar control even if we successfully invade their realm, a good number show adoration for Thor. If the Thunderer sits the throne, through my dam we have indirect control of the golden realm, and through Thor’s own blood will Asgard by Jötunheimr be ruled. Now, who here still has objections, or a better course of action to propose?”

All shook their heads, even old Þjazi, who grumbled all the way.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **  
  
1\. It has happened once before. Þrúðr would have laughed harder, had she not fallen asleep at the court function a day prior, planting her face soundly into a bowl of soup.

2\. Handy shape-shifting Jötunn is handy.

3\. Some thought that their new King should take on a consort or two of his own caliber (someone with actual intellect, for one), and even Váli had to give some of his dam’s suitors props for effort, creativity, and persistence. But why must they all use him as the go-between? Why not Narfi11? Váli thought as he tried to explain again, with patience, to Angrboða of the ironwoods, that no, the King is not looking to have concubines, and no, if my lord wishes to discuss about threesomes, he should take it to the other two people he hopes to involve directly.

4\. Some would ask, what of quality? What of accountability? Project management? What of the foremen and engineers and overseers who oversaw these constructions? But ah my dear friends, what is a construction job without outsourced contracts, questionable material procurement, shoddy quality, cut corners, and profit for the invested? Take all that fine tradition and add some comely Jötnar egging them on, the Æsir in charge were more than glad to liberate some funds from the public coffers to fill their own. Beside, who would be bold enough to breech these walls, the walls of the forever strong golden realm?

5\. Although Þjazi could turn into a great eagle with the aid of a cloak gifted to him by a Vanir lord while they were still in each other’s favour, his preferred form was that of a great bull moose. 

The frost lord spent half centuries at a time running across the frozen tundra, grazing on the bitter moss and lichens stubbornly growing on exposed rocks, strolling between giant pine trees, his hooves crunching the soft fallen needles beneath. A surveyor of his lands.

But when he was younger, he’d often venture further from his ever-winter home to warmer climes.

One of his favourite retreats was a very well-kept orchard. He’d leap over the tall spiked fence and pick at the sweetly fermented fruits amongst its soft grass. The owner guarded her sanctuary jealously from men, but was generous to beasts, as long as they kept away from the gleaming golden apples planted at the center.

Sometimes Þjazi would lay down in the meadow, and watch her as she trimmed the branches and wrapped young saplings for winter. And she would pet him on the nose while offering him a bribe of juicy red apples. 

“What a gentle giant you are,” she said.

6\. His own parents’ A+ Parenting, to start with.

7\. Þrymr painted in his spare time from memory, but good as his memory was, he could not quite get Jörð’s smile right, so pensive was his face when Þrymr saw him last.

8\. Þrymr had, with many others, tried to replicate the small rainbow, for it would be a tool to power for his realm. But try as they might, they ended each and every time in failure.

9\. Váli swore he heard, past his own shock, cries such as “Why Odin? Why not me???”, “Oh cruel fate, for the most intelligent amongst us to have birthed an idiot!”, “Even fat old Þrymr would have been a better choice!”, “Cures you AllFather! I saw him first!!!”

10\. Váli took the issue to Loki later, accusing him of giving his son a man’s work, but not a man’s trust. Loki reminded him of Þrymr’s promise to Jörð, and said it was not his secret to tell. Does blood now suddenly make the Thunderer, who was raised and grown Æsir through and through, any different? Also if his son is so interested in the journal, would he help his poor dam decipher Jörð’s horribly messy and disjointed notes, and research on a cure for the Yggdrasil?

To which the boy wisely shook his head, and quickly changed the topic to the baby-sitting schedules for little Magni.

11\. Narfi ate most of the gifts and notes meant for the King. Váli actually delivered some out of courtesy, but also remarked to his dam on all the gifters’ shortcomings most casually.  
  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had way too much fun drawing this.


	45. Extras: The Missing

_**Extras: The Missing** _

_**The Wall** _

All the holds of Jötunheimr sent tributes to the AllFather in the form of goods and slaves, even Þrymr’s magical city. The Æsir were particularly fond of the good horse Svaðilfari Þrymr sent from his own stables, for Svaðilfari was a fine Jötunn horse1, from whose seeds many more fine horses were bred for Asgard. But the Horse-Master who was sent along with it was promptly ignored, for he was neither striking of feature nor notable of temper, and the giant was assigned to hard labour on expanding the Æsir cities instead.

The then Horse-Master was now a Builder. Each day he carried up rocks carved by his brethren from the mountains, and stacked them one on one to shore up walls and battlements for his enemies. He was patient, obedient, swift and nimble-handed despite his bulk, and soon gained some favour from his chief overseer, who was delighted to find that the Jötunn had some experience in construction back on its home-world. After many turns of the moon, and many projects for which the Builder had provided his steady services, the áss had enough trust to ask of the Jötunn’s opinions, and leave the beast in charge of its own kind while he himself snuck off to drink.

“What a good slave you are, Jötunn,” the overseer said. “Here, I even brought back some mead for you to drink.”

The Builder’s wide mouth cracked into a smile as he accepted the rare gift. Patience my friend, patience, as the winter is long and the glaciers constant, lord Þrymr had said. Unlike Laufey, old Þrymr will condemn no brother of his into slavery. But he will send you, friend, to be his ears and eyes. Asgard’s triumph will not last forever. For now, we must bide our time.

**

Prince Magni paid the Builder visits in the day, asking about this and that. His young but shrewd eyes catching some of the weaknesses in the structures and mistakes in engineering, but the boy said nothing.

Prince Váli paid the Builder visits in the night, inquiring about this and that. His young hands tracing the blue prints of the walls and pipes and aqueducts, and they talked of many things.

When King Loki paid the Builder and his fellow slaves a visit, it was in a misty morning.

“Well done my loyal subjects. My apologies for not springing you to freedom sooner, and my thanks for fulfilling your ever important purpose, for laying, ah, the foundations,” the King said with a smirk, opening a door out of thin air behind him. “Now that your tasks are done, and a war looming near, I think it is past time for you to finally go home. Your King will take it from here.”

Behind the King, the Builder can see glimmering through the door, the icicle-decked halls of Värmland.

Ironic, the Spymaster who pretended to be a Builder thought, that Æsir would benefit from Jötnar trickery to war upon other Æsir, only for the end results to benefit cold and beautiful Jötunheimr.

**

_**The Brother** _

One thing Thor noticed about his sons, was that Magni could draw well, but was not especially interested in the activity over others, unless it was in aid of him building things, and that Móði liked to draw, but his drawings were beyond the comprehension of others.

Take this drawing of Asgard’s royal stables for example, such abstract lines and squiggles. And was that an eight-legged horse? Thor squinted.

“He is Sleipnir! Eight legs make him go faster!” Móði said.

Thor ruffled his younger son’s hair, and picked him up to go on an afternoon ride on real ponies with the proper number of legs. How can eight legs make a horse go faster? Won’t they become tangled?

He is my friend/cousin/brother, and he is not always here2, as those not directly connected to The End wont to be. Móði said not.

**

_**The Victorious One** _

Sigyn was beautiful, a classical Æsir beauty.

Sigyn was talented, from her loom charming tapestries took shape, from her hands scrumptious meals were prepared, from her gentle seiðr wounds were closed, hurts were soothed.

Sigyn was also barren.

So Sigyn was unwed.

**

One day while walking in the gardens on the fringe of the palace grounds, Sigyn ran into a quiet young boy with sharp features, sitting by himself next to a hedge.

She stopped and enquired if the boy was lost. To which he replied he was playing hide and seek with someone.

Feeling suddenly maternal, for had she not been cursed with her barren womb, and had she married as her friends did, her own son would be of the very same age, Sigyn gave the boy a candy from her own pockets, and sat down next to him.

The boy was polite, well-spoken, and very shy. Sigyn was very taken with him, and the thought of “this could have been my son” passed through her mind several times. But whose child was this? Was he a son of one of the minor lords? Why had Sigyn never seen him at court functions before? And it was getting awfully late. Had the poor child’s playmates forgot about him?

Just as Sigyn made to suggest they leave the garden for warmer indoors to find his parents, the boy’s entire body posture perked up. A red streak topped with blonde hair barreled down the pathway, screaming “Váli I’ve finally found you!!!” all the way. And from the opposite direction, Sigyn’s best friend, a court lady of older age and much more experience in life, came towards them. She pulled Sigyn away and gestured for her to bow, and addressed the little girl latching onto the boy as Princess Þrúðr.

The two children waved the ladies good bye, and ran off in the quick way children did. 

“Whose child was that? The playmate of our Princess? Such a good child was he,” Sigyn turned to her friend and asked.

“Associate not with that child. He has deceived you with an appearance most false. For he is no child of our people, but a lowly Jötunn slave,” the friend cautioned the younger lady and pulled her away. 

**

_**Cultural Surprise** _

When Thor, who once worshipped his father and took the AllFather’s words as law and gospel, only ever saw Odin at court functions, and his conversations with his King only limited to the reception of new commands, he received an invitation to a summer festival via arctic goose.

The postage read Gastropnir, Jötunheimr.

Tired of the courts of Asgard, and with all but the youngest of his children away on their own adventures, Thor packed up with his favorite thrall and their toddler son, and headed without notice, in a fit of rebelliousness, to Jötunheimr.

**

The weather was fair (for a winter’s land, how surprising to find it could get warm and green here?), the food was strange but good (not the seals though), and the sights were so very different than the golden realm, but no less breathtaking. 

And Svipdag and Menglöð were gracious hosts, who told their subjects from all walks of life and guests from all over the realms of how the Thunderer and his consort had played matchmakers for them.

But some of the local customs took a bit to get used to.

“But why?” Thor demanded of his consort/brother.

“Humour your hosts. They respected you enough to get Swithiod mead just for you. If not that, then humour me. You said you wanted to see my land and how my people live, would it kill you to honour our traditions?” Loki rolled his eyes at Thor, and thrust a piece of long flowing garment at the Thunderer. “Try this one. Maybe it will fit this time.”

Thor grumbled.

“What of your promise of goodwill towards Jötunheimr? The show of sincerity to mend the rift between our people as you have promised?”

Thor grumbled.

“I did it for you, multiple times!”

Thor grumbled some more, but finally relented.

**

When the Thunderer showed up on Loki’s arm, the golden god in a flowing dress lightly trimmed with fur, and Loki in a colourful loincloth, he was slightly pacified to see all the other men attired similar to himself, but for a nagging voice at the back of his head saying he has been tricked yet again by the trickster sons of Jötunheimr.

**

“…so we could have half of our own people dressed in the fashions of females, and convince the Vanir3 and Álfa, who are easily swayed in matters of pleasure, to do the same-” Loki said to Menglöð via a scrying mirror made from a silver wash basin.

“What of the dvergar?” Svipdag interrupted. “They’d never agree to such a thing, stoic people that they are.”

“Oh please, with how stockily some of their women-folks are built and all that beard, Thor would never tell the difference,” Loki waved his hand.

“Deal. And we can sell tickets too. I wager many would pay to see the Thunderer in a dress4,” Menglöð rubbed his little blue hands together. 

**  
  
**NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**

1\. Loki would have liked the horse, purely as a sportsman would like a fine steed, had the áss who owned it not owned Loki at the same time.

2\. Sleipnir was a gift to Odin from Loki, and he only ever appeared when Loki had enough time to be the AllFather’s brother/son/friend. Móði missed him in the iterations where the horse was not there. He really was the fastest, and gave the best piggyback rides.

3\. “But why?” Freyr asked of the dam of his sons.

Gerðr simply gave him a look, and followed up by throwing Freyr’s pillow from the bed to the couch.

4\. Many who doubted the prowess of their King relented after the summer party at Gastropnir. To have the Thunderer himself be his woman, King Loki must be a fearsome and wily character5 indeed.

5\. Several orders of dresses were made from Bilskirnir after that summer. The dressmakers all thought these orders must have been for a very large and sturdy woman indeed.

Loki was the very cat that ate the canary, while Thor grumblingly admitted that such costumes plays6 were not without their merits.

6\. Such as “The Æsir Maiden and The Wild Giant”, “The Asgardian Noble Woman and Her Jötnar Thrall”, “The Innocent Goatherd and Her Horned Lover”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At first I thought, it is unfair that Sleipnir isn't even in this story. And what of the poor wall-builder and owner of Svaðilfari?  
> But that would have been a very short chapter indeed.
> 
> And then...  
> And then...  
> The height of Norse mythology happened!  
> I blame one of my readers, you know who you are. ;)


	46. Extras: Children

_**Extras: Children** _

These are some things that have happened, but not in the chronological order they were listed in.

**

After a day of hard work, the peasants of Asgard gossiped. They gossiped of their neighbours, they gossiped of their friends, they gossiped of their royalty, who glowed golden beyond their reach.

Sometimes they even gossiped of said royalty’s slaves, who ate and dressed and lived far better than themselves.

And it was with a touch of reverence and a touch of fear, that they gossiped of their Prince and his page. The child birthed by the Prince’s cuckolding slave had grown. Strangely, the Prince faulted not his faithless slave, and took the bastard under his wing. 

The devourer, men came to call the child. A devourer of land and crops even at birth, now a devourer of beasts and men, who consumed the Thunderer’s foolish foes, and spat them out as ashes in the wind.

Elsewhere, Narfi sneezed as he helped saddle his Master’s horse. His brother would one day rule Jötunheimr, a head of state balanced by a coalition of calculating lords and shrewd local dignitaries. He himself had no head or will for such complex dealings, but Loki had promised him that should he wish to learn how to be a good Prince and general to stand in defense of his realm and people, he’d find no better teacher than Thor.

**

When Magni was still in his childhood, Thor felled a giant who harassed his hold, after failing to reason with him. The giant, perhaps as his dying revenge, or perhaps simply by a chance of gravity, fell in such a way, that his foot landed as a literal dead weight atop the Thunderer, who despite his might, could not lift so heavy a press from so awkward an angle1.

Magni, who followed his sire secretly, not wishing to miss an adventure, set up a system of gears and pulleys, and lifted the giant’s corpse high enough for Thor to pry himself free.

Amidst the local farmers’ whispers of freakish strength and frost giant sorcery2, Thor praised his son, and gifted the dead giant’s yellow haired war horse to the boy. He’d grow tall enough to ride it soon, the Thunderer reasoned.

Magni wormed himself into the horse’s affections with baths and briberies of sweet treats in a few brief weeks, and mastered the riding of it, saddle-less, in a few short days after, despite Loki’s worry that “that oaf” had given his son a horse too large and ill-tempered. Magni rode the horse, now named Gold-Mane, to Odin’s pastures to show his grandmother, and to prove to his grandfather that a reedy boy like himself still has some of Thor’s warrior blood in him. But instead of praises, Odin admonished Thor for wasting such a fine horse on a mere slave’s boy, instead of stocking the royal stables of the King.

Magni still adored the horse, who was a spirited and curious beast from the land of his dam, but did not ride him again until years later, when Thor sent him as envoy to Swithiod3, in part for inter-realm relations, but mostly for the trade agreement renewal for mead.

**

Fashionable young ladies at court wondered why their Princess had not gotten rid of her slave yet. Sure he was ever handsome, but his thin build and serious face were so last year. A thrall with a fuller build and more chiselled face would make a much better accessory.

An older lady scuffed at them. The foolish girl was not yet fully grown and still attached to her thrall, having been nursed by its mother and raised in its presence. Why, look at her own lord husband’s pet tiger. As a cub, it was given a bitch as its nursing mother. The tiger still played with the mutts it drank milk together with, even when it outgrew them by far in size.

Ah, but a tiger was a tiger, and a cur a cur. Soon enough the king of beasts would realize that, and tear its false brothers apart4.

She was thus left scandalized and horrified, when news varying from the Princess had eloped with her Jötunn thrall to Svartálfaheimr, the Princess had booked a seedy hotel with her Jötunn thrall at Útgarðar and didn’t come out for days, the Princess had ravished the slave in front of the Álfheimr court, the Princess was pregnant with the thrall’s bastard all along, the Princess had gotten her thrall with child5, and so on and so forth, drifted back to Asgard.

The fashionable young ladies were more excited, however, about the juicy gossip of how the Princess had asked for the Prince of Jötunheimr’s hand in courtship. Was the Prince handsome, like some of his kind tend to be? Was he good between the sheets, like they all say of the giants (Oh but why would I know? Unless you do? No never!)? Perhaps only a giant could satisfy their mannish Princess, and not feel unmanned by her carriage and manners. Bold girl, but Odin would never let such a thing happen6.

**

Loki opened the parcel Thor has mailed him, during the Thunderer’s deployment to a remote border town of Asgard, and out tumbled a gold torc, intricately carved and laden with jewels.

A gift, the attached note said. I remember how you jokingly asked for one, for when we have money again, on that trip of ours.

The small giant caressed his stomach, and hummed at the child within. Móði has been quiet today. He barely kicked, and only punched Loki on the ribs once.

The torc was fine, but Loki missed the gifter more.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  
  
1\. And without eating breakfast in the morning to boot!

2\. Magni proposed to his grandfather to start a mandatory early-years education program for the low-borns of Asgard, so that they may know their letters, numbers, and the basic sciences, but the proposal fell on deaf ears. Magni was much disappointed. Why shouldn’t the general populace be taught the simpler aspects of the workings of the worlds? It wasn’t as if he wanted them to learn about rocket science and how to build inter-dimensional technicoloured railguns.

Thor’s hold around Bilskirnir however, did start, with much dragging of feet and kicking and screaming, such a program for all children who would attend. And Jötunheimr, after much bureaucratic wranglings, finally adopted a unified realm-wide standard for early education, with each hold and jarl-dom putting their own micromanaging touches for the regional school boards.

3\. Gold-Mane’s strong hooves pounded the dirt road beneath, as wind swept through its yellow mane and Magni’s jet black hair. Over the rolling golden hills of ripe oats and barley, past the green bushes of sweet overripe berries, the horse and boy rode on.

The Prince dodged around a flock of goose as a young Vanir maid blushed prettily at him, nodded politely at elderly women who sat on stone steps, their hands still deft in the weaving of straw baskets, and stopped at a crossroad to let a cowherd and his herd go by. The simple folks of Swithiod’s plentiful land paused in their labours to admire the boy’s fine horse, some stopping to wave at him, welcoming the young visitor with sharp features and fine horsemanship to their land.

Over the last hill Magni saw the town, the town at the foot of king Fjölnir’s great halls. The boy dismounted, petted Gold-Mane’s nose in thanks, and set for an even-paced walk with his horse. He saw a group of farmers who were busy gathering bushels of barley for the making of malt, and made for them, hoping to ask if he came at the right time for an audience with the king, for the lord of these lands was known to attend harvests across his hold around autumn times, and was often not found in his own great lodge.

A honey gold head rose from the barley pickers, under the rich blonde curls was a fair face with an open smile, honest eyes, and a smudge of dirt covering some of the light freckles7.

“Such a fine yellow horse you have, young traveller. And such skills not seen around these parts, to be able to ride so majestic a beast without saddle or reins! Are you here for sightseeing? Our fall festivities are just about to start,” the young barley picker said. He wiped his right hand on his loose cotton shirt adorned with a simple but charming embroidery of a golden boar, and held it out towards Magni.

Magni could not help but to smile back and grip the offered hand, all the while thinking he’s seen that friendly face somewhere, before, across time and from half remembered dreams.

4\. The tiger played well with its doggy brothers and sisters until the end of all their days.

5\. Svartálfaheimr was quite the adventure, a rare trip in which Váli finally joined Þrúðr and Volstagg’s boisterous brood, and found that the sons of Volstagg really weren’t that bad, and the daughters of Volstagg were spirited valkyrjas in their own rights. Þrúðr was a bit upset at her brother’s second discovery.

Útgarðar only had one type of hotel, seedy ones, and Þrúðr was recovering from drake poisoning on top of food poisoning from a combination of unfortunate mishaps. Váli vowed to never let his Princess cook again.

The Álfheimr court agreed it was more snogging and a couple of good gropes by the lady’s hand than proper ravishing. Ah young love! 

Váli, after a few visits to Midgard and king Agnar’s ever-expanding household, became a staunch supporter of planned-parenthood, and Þrúðr, no matter how manly she sometimes was, still lacked the equipment to perform certain feats.

“Peh, paparazzi,” Váli had said.

6\. She had asked straightforwardly, he had answered in a roundabout way. Thor said yes, despite his flash of anger at his slaves’ duplicities8. Odin said no, and found this a convenient excuse to strip Þrúðr of her paltry military commands. And Loki, sly observant Loki, only smirked in response, and neither said yes or no, for the children’s decisions were ultimately their own.

7\. Yes this was the king you were looking for, Magni.

8\. Anger quickly reined in, as Thor stormed into his slave’s study, remembering that he would need an army to defend himself from his father’s wrath, for this wrath would one day inevitably come. It was an army that he no longer possessed, but Loki seemed to be in possession of.

Anger quickly dissipated, as Thor saw Loki holding Móði’s small hand, helping the boy use a pipette, and suddenly realised that Loki could have easily taken his family far out of Thor’s reach during all these years, yet here with him still they all remained, Jötunheimr’s wiliest and bravest trickster sons.  
  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short hiatus after due to RL.


	47. Extras: Summer Trip (aka Loki on Vacation and Thor’s Fishing Adventures II)

_**Extras: Summer Trip (aka Loki on Vacation and Thor’s Fishing Adventures II)** _

Though Loki has lived away from his homeland for most of his adult life, he still yearned for its tall silver mountain peaks, snow covered plains, and vast frozen lakes from time to time, especially during the sweltering Asgardian summers, when the sun was both bright and near, and the cicadas screamed ceaselessly from the trees.

On such days, Loki could often be found in the baths, half submerged in a marble pool filled to the brim with ice cubes of his own making, or fanning himself under the shade, his Jötunn blue covered behind fair Æsir skin. His temper would be hot as the weather, his person easily irritated and quick to anger. Worst was when he bore Móði in his womb. So foul was his disposition, that even Thor had to tip-toe around him, lest the Jötunn be set off on one of his moods. 

So when Thor finally stopped caring for the gossips of his father’s court and the disapproval of his father, and showed himself not quite opposed to the idea of a jaunt or two to the giant’s homeland without the need to smash the skulls of every giant he came across, Loki wasted no time in convincing his Prince on the occasional summer vacations in Jötunheimr.

**

It was on one such trip, when Loki skipped off with Thor’s two sons “to immerse the boys in their other heritage”, that Thor was left alone with their host Hymir, a minor Jötunn lord.

Now lord Hymir was a hard-headed giant who took delight in his large herd of woolly yaks and making pots and kettles of all shapes and sizes. He was reluctant to let the Thunderer into his house, for a famed giant-slayer was the áss. Yet he dared not go against the wishes of his King. So grudgingly he waved said King goodbye, and laid out a small feast for his lone remaining guest.

Thor was put out by being left behind, but could not begrudge Loki the rare chance to stretch his proverbial wings, finally away from the prying Asgardian court and public. Instead the Thunderer took out his frustrations upon his dinner, and ate several whole yaks and drank tankards after tankards of Hymir’s good ale.

Hymir was equally put out to see so small an áss eat so much. He counted on his hands the number of yaks Thor had devoured, the number of yaks left in his herd, and the number of days Loki said he would be away, and realized that he must get his guest to hunt for his own food, lest Hymir finds himself short of a yak herd by the end of the Thunderer’s stay. As Hymir was a most straightforward giant1, he told Thor just as such.

Thor thought some hunting and fishing of Jötunheimr’s wild beasts might be a better way to pass the time than sitting and eating in the giant’s halls, but was displeased to have the giant refuse him hospitality so outright. Had Thor been younger, and without the benefit of meeting Loki2, this would have been a good cue as any to start smashing the giant’s hard head in. But while Thor’s strength had not weaned with age, his anger had been tempered by time. And it was a few moons ago, before falling asleep after a bout of passion with Loki, his “hammer” still nestled in the Jötunn’s soft folds, that Thor had realized with a start that out of all the giants he’s met, the ones he’d talked to or had passed in peace had actually outnumbered the ones he’d slayed. Somewhere along the way, the Jötnar were no longer simple beasts and hated enemies to be crushed and cut down on the battlefields, but people with faces and names.

So instead of reacting to Hymir’s slight to a Prince of the realms with violence3, Thor suggested a game instead. They would hold friendly competitions in seeing who was the better hunter and fisherman, and the winner would gain a compensation from the loser.

For winnings Hymir asked to borrow the older Thorson’s horse Gold-Mane for the next breeding season, so that his herd of mares would have a chance at getting good foals the next spring. As the giant has asked for something of Magni’s, Thor thought it only fair that he would request something for Magni in return, so he pointed at the largest and most well-made kettle hanging on Hymir’s wall, and asked for it to be his own winning. It would make a good brewing vat and a fetching gift for Magni to present to his friend the Swithiod king. Young Fjölnir might even be convinced to up the trade limit on his hold’s good mead after such a gift.

**

Meanwhile Loki led his two boys to a small moot, where giants from nearby holds and villages and caverns gathered to hawk their wares, and their lords gathered to talk of politics. Magni and Móði shed their fur-lined cloaks and heavy coats, and with a blink of the eye both were Jötnar blue, with lines denoting them for scions of Mímir on their skin, and little horns atop their heads, although they were still both rather small.

The three small giants weaved under and around their larger kin, and sampled various spices and snacks from the stalls while Loki pointed out as best as he could the multitudes of different Jötnar, from which holds they’ve likely hailed, and their different customs and ways.

When they sat down to lunch at a food stall, a great heavy giant sat right next to them. Loki looked up to see the wide grinning face of none other than Värmland’s ruling lord.

**

Thor and Hymir fished and hunted first in Jötunheimr to a tie, then in the frozen southernmost point of Álfheimr, to which Hymir’s hold had a portal hidden in its deep woods, also to a tie. At last Thor suggested Midgard, where he was appointed protector, and granted access via a rune stone. Hymir grudgingly agreed, after making Thor promise that they would only go to its cold north, for the tropics disagreed with the giant greatly the last time he was there.

So to the freezing northern waters4 the two went, alternatingly hauling Hymir’s great boat on their shoulders.

**

Jarl Þrymr hailed his runt King and his two runty whelps most merrily, and in an attempt to show good faith, offered to pay for their food.

Never one to turn away a free lunch5, Loki grudgingly accepted the fat jarl’s company. He then turned to his sons and said, “Although this fat old fool is a giant of dubious character in many ways, he is still a famed master of seiðr, and a passable statesman. Feel free to pester him about lore and runes and tricks in trade. I am sure our gracious host, who is buying all our lunch AND dinner6, would not begrudge two young and inquisitive children their curiosity.”

“Ohh! Can you buy us tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch and dinner and the next day’s and the day after’s too7? Please Uncle Prymr? I can see from your handsome and friendly face that you must be a generous soul!” Móði smiled winningly at the old jarl, then he waved at the food stall’s staff, “Mr Waiter, I’ll have five servings of the most expensive things on your manual please!”

Magni sipped his spiked berry juice, smiled at Prymr, and calmly ordered everything on the manual.

Prymr glared at the three runts as he realized how Loki’s spawns have inherited their dam’s appetite. The Thunderer must rule over a prosperous hold indeed, to be able to feed them all.

**

Thor and Hymir cast their lines and waited.

The Norns smiled down at Hymir that day, for each time he reeled in his line, there was a whale of some sort at the end of it8. 

Thor on the other hand growled at his salmons and seals and an unfortunate polar bear.

**

“…so how did some of the Midgardian tales featuring the denizens of other realms came about anyway?” Magni asked as he washed down the last of his dessert with juniper flavoured mead. Their talks have turned towards idle whimsies after a few days in Prymr’s company. The old Jötunn was both a letch and a fool at times, but surprisingly knowledgeable and occasionally wise when he wished to be.

“Ah, I am sure your own dam and sire have both contributed greatly to the imagination of humans. Perhaps it is best to ask them, no? Especially about the thunder and fertility deity Asa-Thor’s mighty, ahm, hammer,” Prymr winked at Loki, who scowled back at him.

“But some of the tales don’t even make sense! Take my father’s hammer9 for example. The humans knew that none other than father could lift Mjölnir, and the good hammer would return to him when called, yet in that story involving you,” Magni pointed at Prymr, “You have stolen the hammer in ransom for fair Freyja, and my father had to dress as a bride to get Mjölnir back. How could you steal a hammer that you cannot move, and could be called back by the owner at will? And instead of how fierce the bride’s eyes looked, shouldn’t the Prymr in the human tales notice the Thunderer’s stubbles first?!”

“Ah but little Prince, mythologies rarely makes sense. And that is all we are to the humans, myths and legends of yore, for they are a young race who have just began to reach for other stars,” Prymr rumbled as he chugged at his own ale. “Besides, firstly, Freyja isn’t really my type. Secondly, you should excuse the Prymr in the human tales, for drunken eyes only notice what they would. And I do completely agree with you about that blasted hammer. Lastly, although this particular tale never happened, and your sire never a bride, he does look rather fetching in a dress.”

At which Loki hissed in warning. But Prymr simply laughed, “Oh worry not Loki, I am no more interested in the Thunderer than you in a rock. Besides, were you not the one who devised the plot to trick Thor into a dress? Did you not charge old Prymr a ticket to see the sight?”

“Ah and I missed that! I was on that trip! My Jötnar nurses were talking about it! Oh why did I have to be a toddler and take that nap?” Móði lamented.

Here Prymr stage whispered to the two Princes, “If you each pay twice the price your dam charged me for the ticket, I would let you see the many photos of Thor dressed as a maid that old Prymr took with the Midgardians’ digital glasses10.”

The two Princes’ faces lit up as Loki glared.

**

Thor cursed and cast again, with a young yak tied to his fishing line as lure this time. For three days they have fished, and for three days Hymir had the better catch. With a lure this big and fresh, something bigger had to bite the hook! Magni would gladly share his horse. But Loki would mock him for days on end for losing to an old herder and crockery maker.

The yak sank down, down, down into the freezing waters, pulling the line with it. Thor stared at the sea until his two eyes stun, but nothing took the bait. Just as the Thunderer was about to give up and pull up the yak to make a meal of it for himself, something tugged at the line.

Thor gave an excited whoop and pulled up with a mighty heave, only to blink in confusion as whatever bit the lure surged up instead of pulling down.

The sea parted with a giant splash, and Hymir’s boat was rocked by the resulting waves, as the largest serpent Thor had ever seen raised its head high above the waters, the yak between its wide jaws. The serpent’s long slithering body wavered left and right at Thor as if waving in greeting, its face oddly friendly. With a great gulp it devoured the yak, spat out the hook, and with another splash sank back into the ocean’s depths.

Behind Thor, Hymir cried out in dismay, for all his catches were gone, likely swallowed by the same serpent. Thor ignored the giant and stared at his empty hook. He could have sworn the serpent felt greatly familiar. And were those two little curved horns atop its big scaly head?

**

The Princes chortled in glee as they scrolled through the pictures. Loki and Prymr talked of GDP and the upcoming census in serious, quiet voices in the background.

**

Back at Hymir’s halls, the old giant argued that he was the winner of their contest, for he had the most catches.

Thor argued differently, for clearly Thor had the biggest catch. Yes he’d also lost it, but didn’t Hymir also lose his haul, and now had to share Thor’s salmons and gorge on Thor’s seals? And the loss of the serpent was no fault of Thor’s. Hymir was the one who provided the surely defective hook!

The two might have come to blows or worse, with Thor raising his cup to throw, and Hymir readying his great steel spoon to strike, but at that moment Hymir’s spouse stumped into the dining hall, dropped a heavy skillet filled with sizzling yak meat topped with mushrooms and three cheeses onto the great stone table with a thud, and gave Hymir’s hard head an equally hard thwack, “Keep it down old man! And you too little Æsir guest. The grandchildren are trying to sleep! You’d both be quiet if you still want any dessert. And Loki is returning on the morrow with his two little ones isn’t he? You wouldn’t want the halls to be a mess when he gets back now would you?”

Thor put down his cup, remembering with shame how Loki had made the Prince promise that he would be civilized to his host. And Hymir put down his spoon, recalling with trepidation what a terrifying tyrant the Winter King could be.

**

The next day, when Loki and the children walked through Hymir’s door, Thor gave Loki the teeth, claws, and horns of all the fierce and elusive beasts he’d hunted down for use on spells and potions. Then he gifted Móði with a sizeable polar bear pelt for a new rug, and presented Magni with a very large, very finely made kettle. He then got the older Prince to agree to the lending of his good horse to old Hymir.

Thor then told Loki of his fishing trip in Midgard, “You have missed a great adventure, Brother! I have seen the most enormous serpent anyone alive had ever laid eyes upon in Midgard’s oceans! Allow me to regale you with the retelling of my tale.”

Loki sat down next to Thor, and smiled a wishful smile.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  
  
1\. The main reason why Loki left Thor with him. A wily giant would not be good company to leave Thor alone with, even if the Thunderer has gotten wiser (or simply more practiced, for such crafty company he keeps) over the years.

2\. Somewhat dubious benefit, as many would comment.

3\. Disturbing how many of the old tales ended with “And then Thor slew all the giants, sometimes for very little reason”.

4\. Slightly less frozen than recent, what’s with global warming and all, but more frozen than when the dinosaurs were walking. Hymir was rather put out when all those funny large lizards disappeared.

5\. A holdover habit from his camping days with Thor. A free meal was a free meal.

6\. Prymr’s intent was to buy them lunch and earn himself some goodwill from his new King. Loki’s intent was to eat a loooooong lunch that goes all the way into a hearty dinner.

7\. Móði’s intent was to capitalize on this chance and outdo his dam.

8\. Elsewhere conservationists and marine biologists screamed.

9\. Móði was fairly sure Prymr was inferring to a different hammer, given the faint blush darkening Loki’s cheeks.

10\. Phone used as a watch. Glasses used as a camera. Watch used as a phone. Oh those funny humans.  
  
**


	48. Extras: Dear Journal

_**Extras: Dear Journal** _

Though he was known as a great procrastinator, Móði thought today was a good day as any to start working on the first half of this incarnation’s journal entries, having already filled all the pages for happenings of more recent times.

He took out his heavy tome and dropped it onto the table with a heave. Flip flip flip, his tiny hands flipped through a thousand tales upon a thousand pages, until he arrived at a half blank one with a green silk bookmark.

Móði dipped his pen in ink, and started:  
 _  
Ymir was alone on his tree, so to keep himself company, he torn himself apart to make the world._

_Mímir was a thoughtful child, while his sibling Bestla boisterous and forceful._

_Mímir visited three ladies, dug a well, sat the throne, and opened up a school for any who would come.  
Bestla was impregnated, and was quite displeased that his mobility became limited by the thing growing within his womb._

_Jörð and his parents beat back suitors with big sticks, while Jörð considered higher education._

_Bestla’s son came to visit, an angry young man. This was the son who made a habit of stealing from his dam’s land, as if to make up for his dam’s neglect. One time he’d stolen a babe. Another time the Casket of Winters Old. Yet another time the relic and babe both. This time, he stole no child or artefact or gold, but whisked away with him the heart of Jörð._

_Bestla’s son hung himself from the Tree. Jörð dabbed the man’s bleeding eye socket with anti-infectives and fed antibiotics down his parched throat, all the while wondering if his lover was into bdsm._

_A bridge of rainbows appeared. A wonder bestowed by the Norns, they say._

_Bestla’s son slew his father and took his job. Ah youth employment._

_Æsir-Vanir war start. People died. Idiots._

_Mímir argued for peace for the sake of his sibling-son, only to lose his head at Vanir hands. Oh what loss, all his wisdom and learnings! So suddenly and terrible an end!_

_Æsir-Vanir war end. What was the point._

_Jörð put a small rainbow into Þrymr’s hands._

_Jörð carried the thunder. Bestla’s son married a daughter of Vanaheimr._

_Who liked Jörð better because come on Jörð._

_Jörð’s lover was an irresponsible cheater. (And horrible parent and grandpa. An especially horrible grandpa.)_

_Æsir-Jötnar war start. People died again. They never learn._  
  
So annoying, to be born so late into each cycle. How was he supposed to chronicle things properly when he didn’t live through the details? Móði tisked.

Before he could put down to paper exactly what he thought of the Norns for always releasing him into the world so late, loud laughter thundered down the halls. Móði vanished the book just in time, and pulled up a crayon drawing instead.

“What are you doing, my son?” the Thunderer boomed before he even strode through the door, Narfi and Magni in tow.

“Drawing a picture of our family! Here is Papa and Dada. Þrúðr is the one in the skirt wielding a giant sword. These are Váli, Narfi, Magni. And the littlest one is me!” Móði held up his stick drawing.

“Ah the very image of our likeness,” Thor said while trying to figure out which one was in a skirt.

“Are we playing outside today, Papa?” Móði asked, the very image of innocence.

“Aye, our huntmaster brought back new puppies. Come and pick out the ones you want,” Thor picked up his toddler son, who giggled and squeed1.

**

Magni’s thoughts drifted to a much larger canine while his brothers rolled around in the grass with the puppies.

He could not find the tree hole again. Someone or something has obscured it.

But he was a son of Thor, and would not be made an oath-breaker. And he was a son of Loki, and would not back away from another seiðmaðr’s challenge.

Silently he thanked his dam for lending him the use of his transcriptions of The Book2, and he thanked Jörð for documenting all the flora and fauna of the Tree on his walks across its branches. There are only certain regions of the Tree in which the particular thorns and parasites he and Fjölnir hacked through could grow. A son of god had time aplenty to use the brute force approach and comb through them all.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **  
  
1\. No need to pretend there. Móði was ticklish and Thor gave the best piggy-back rides in this lifetime.

2\. Magni was quite surprised at how supportive Loki was of his self-appointed quest. Usually his dam would have dismissed tasks with such low chance of success as a fool’s endeavor.  
  
**


	49. Extras: Short Dialogues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Partly in response to reader request.  
> You know who you are. ;)

  
Móði: So that's what all those orders of extra large dresses were for!  
Magni: What extra large dresses? Oh so Fjölnir's father was there too? Nice skirt.

  
Gardener: Ah dear girl, there you are. Mind helping an old man weed his gardens?  
Hela: You mean a middle-aged man with stretch marks? What am I to do?  
Gardener: Oh just touch the weeds with your special hand. All in a day's work.

  
Váli: !  
Narfi: ? _ ?  
Þrúðr: zzz  
Loki: ...


	50. Extras: Not Yet Ragnarök

_**Extras: Not Yet Ragnarök** _

“What are you all working on?” Thor looked over his brother/spouse’s shoulders.

“Plans,” Loki drew up another parchment.

“Plans?”

“Plans for when Múspellsheimr comes a harrying,” Móði said matter of factly.

“Why would the fire giants be interested in Asgard? They can only live in and around Múspellsheimr,” Thor petted his youngest on the head.

“Because they will,” Móði batted away his father’s hand. He was a big boy now, no head pettings.

“If you want to be burnt to a crisp again, just say the word, oh Prince of mine. Now don’t you have things to smash? Go away, we need to concentrate,” Loki shooed at Thor.

**

Váli shot down two ravens again two days later, this time inside Thor’s halls. Magni also reported from Swithiod that he was followed on his diplomatic visit to king Fjölnir’s house. Loki wondered if Thor had two ravens dogging his steps right now too, and hoped Narfi would make quick roasts of them. The Crown Prince had been sent on even longer and farther journeys by the High King lately, not that Loki would admit to missing the oaf. Odin had been reassigning the Prince’s friends to less influential posts, and now clearly no longer cared for the right to privacy for his oldest son. Ah oldest son. Frigga was finally pregnant with her own child1. Now who would be the heir, and who the spare?

Múspellsheimr was a worry far away into the future. The matter between an old chief god and a potential new one, where the latter replaces the former just as spring replaces winter, was far more immediate. Odin knew of this particular cycle most intimately, having wrestled his title from his own father, and held on stubbornly for all these ages. Before Thor could worry about fire giants, he would have to survive his own father first.

Maybe it was time to write to his loyal subjects and odd allies again, Loki reflected. Last they’ve talked, they were all doing quite well for themselves. It wouldn’t do to let them forget to whom they owned their current prosperity, and ask them to prepare for him their promised shield arms strong and steel swords glinting bright.

**

Loki would see them all survive the end this time yet.

**

 **NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**  
  
1\. Poor unfortunate Baldr2, who earned the winter’s ire before he was even born.

2\. “Why do Magni and Móði have to call him Uncle? He is just a baby!” Narfi scrunched up his face.

“He is our Master’s brother, brother,” Váli said.

“But our Master also calls Loki his brother, yet our younger brothers do not need to call him Uncle, only dam.” Narfi poked at Baldr, who giggled and blew a bubble at him. Maybe he should tip the little runt over to see if he cries. Magni did. Móði simply bit him.

“Think not too hard about this matter. Also please cease your prodding, lest you want the good lady Frigga to never entrust her son to our Master’s care again,” Váli grabbed little Baldr out of his brother’s reach.  
  
**


	51. Extras: Justice and The Accountant

_**Extras: Justice and The Accountant** _

Unlike the Jötnar, who each held some natural power, beings of the land and sea, the Æsir were not all gods, and those who were, often had power over other things.

Some had the power of poetry, some were givers of youth, yet more others of war or healing or the harvest.

When young Kellaa was born, his parents had high hopes for him, for the healers had sensed enough power in him that would one day make him divine. The couple, a pair of simple clerks of Asgard, were overjoyed, and threw a lavish party (as lavish as their small incomes would allow) for the boy’s naming day.

**

Kellaa became the god of accounting1.

**

When he was not buried in his books and numbers, Kellaa would sometimes walk along the battlements to stretch his legs. Sometimes he would even look wishfully at the warriors riding by on their war steeds. But strength of arms was never his forte. As for riding, Kellaa once tried to ride a donkey. It all went well until the beast bit him.

Out of all the warriors, Kellaa admired the Crown Prince the most. The noble Thor, with his uru hammer hanging at his hip, and a red cape billowing behind him, that best and truest protector of Asgard. The very roar of thunder was his voice, the ideal image of Æsir godhood his very form.

One day when Kellaa looked down to see the Crown Prince and his warriors ride past, a boy with a head of shockingly red hair and riding right behind Thor despite being barely out of childhood, looked right back up.

**

Kellaa saw the same boy riding by Thor’s side ever since. 

The bastard child, the Jötunn beast, its cuckolding dam must have placed a charm on our Prince, to have him favour the evidence of his slave’s unfaithfulness so, and entrust it with the position of the Prince’s personal page, the folks around Kellaa said, six parts envy and four parts fear.

But the boy was noticed, the boy was remembered. The boy was definitely loved, by his parent and maybe even the Crown Prince. Unlike poor, useless, forgotten Kellaa, who was only ever remembered by a few during taxation time.

**

Kellaa gave the boy no further thoughts, except for the occasion internal remark on how wild and brightly red his hair was, like a dancing flame atop the boy’s head, its unnatural shade so rare amongst the Æsir.

So it was with surprise that Kellaa looked up to see that same headful of red hair after he tumbled down a flight of stairs, when a group of junior cadets “accidentally” bumped into the accountant. The owner of said hair offered Kellaa a warm hand to pull him up, and commanded the cadets to run laps around the practice grounds as punishment.

“Why should we listen to a slave?” one of the cadets called out.

“Because I outrank you, and I speak on behalf of the Thunderer, who has long-ago freed me legally2, although I will ever be his faithful servant,” the boy tapped the hammer-shaped pendant hanging around his neck. “And my Master suffers neither bullies nor fools3. If you still wish to one day become warriors instead of being sent back to till your fathers’ farms, I suggest you do as I say.”

The boy then helped Kellaa pick up all his dropped scrolls and smiled brightly at him, “I am Narfi, a minor officer in my Master’s small personal army. I hear you are the god of accounting. Great! I hope you have time to help a friendly young man with his math homework.”

So the boy had moved up in ranks. And when did he become this tall? Kellaa wondered.

**

Narfi wasn’t kidding about his math homework. Some of it was ridiculously complex for a young man pursuing a career in the military. Assigned by my dam, the youth sighed.

Kellaa’s hope that he’d finally made a friend with no ulterior motives was dashed. But unlike others who had approached Kellaa hoping to curry favours and bribe the god on matters of shady finances and spotty tax records, Narfi’s friendship was otherwise warm and true.

**

When Kellaa found out just how many nobles of Asgard were anything but noble in their character and dealings during the first cross-departmental audit ever conducted, courtesy of an idea from Narfi’s half-brother, Prince Magni4, the first thought he had was to take this matter to Prince Thor, who was charged with protecting the realm from within as well as without. But the Crown Prince was currently far away from the capital, and his actual influence at court greatly diminished over the years. Kellaa then thought of Prince Magni, but the youth was a prince in name only, held no favours with the AllFather, and had no position in court despite his popularity with commoners and the young.

The web of corruption and embezzlement was spread wide, its roots deep, linking many highborns and courtiers and jarls. Kellaa was surprised that he did not see it before, having been tasked ever only with the collection of taxes, but never the allocation of the civic coffers. To make this scandal all public directly would affect too many. It would at best shake public trust, and at worst destabilize the peace.

Kellaa’s thoughts turned to Narfi, who for once did not deploy with his Master, and still had some friends within the ranks of the city guard. With the young man’s help and protection, he could gather more concrete evidences, present them to the chief justice, maybe even the AllFather if needed, and see this deep corruption within the higher ranks of Asgardian court uprooted. 

**

When Narfi headed to his accountant friend’s place to inquire about the progress of his investigations, he was shocked by the news of the death of a god, the god of accounting.

**

Chief justice Fitch was the very picture of righteous outrage when Kellaa presented carefully organized evidence to him under the light of the day.

Chief justice Fitch was the very blade in the back when Kellaa walked home from the scribes’ halls in the dark of the night.

Kellaa was thorough, but not thorough enough, for chief justice Fitch was anything but just.

**

The whole of Asgard would have mourned had it been the god of poetry or mead or youth or war who had passed.

But accounting? What was it good for? Could you fight with it? Bring glory with it? Go to Valhalla with it?

So Kellaa first disappeared into a little wooden boat, then drifted down the river and went up in flames, then faded from the thoughts and memories of his fellow Æsir5.

**

But Narfi was no Æsir, and his memory clear and long. And before Thor taught him how to fight and bring down a man, Thor had taught him how to track and hunt.

**

Narfi burst into a bright pillar of fire that shot high into the sky, visible to all who looked in the right direction for miles and miles.

And judgement came to a god of judgements that day6.

**

**NOTES** (that you wish you didn't read) **:**

  
1\. And somewhat of a punching bag and a doormat7. An accountant in the land of macho men and all.

2\. Thor never freed Váli, for the boy was not his to free, but his daughter Þrúðr’s property. Thor never freed Loki either. Legally the slave was never registered under his name, even after the Thunderer no longer worried that the Jötunn would disappear into thin air should he ever be freed, the bond that tied them together made of stronger stuff than law, ownership, and even love.

But when Narfi expressed his wishes to join the military at dinner one evening, Thor beamed at finally having another child of his household follow his own footsteps, and took the boy to get his papers sorted out first thing next morning.

To Thor’s chagrin, the rest of Asgard still referred to Narfi as ‘that bastard Jötunn slave’ more often than not, when they thought the Crown Prince not listening. Narfi didn’t care though. He signed up to beat people up with legitimacy, not for a change of title. He knew who he was, brother to the coolest siblings, son to loving parents, and a royal Prince of Jötunheimr.

3\. Although Loki loved to regale his children with tales from when Thor was both a bit of a bully and an even bigger fool than present.

4\. “What means you that we have no third party audits???” Magni exploded with a wild gesture and almost spilled his mead.

“Well your highness, I have only ever been tasked to help the clerks with the tabulation of taxes, but rarely on exactly how they were spent. Audits were the job of the royal clerks, and not a minor god such as myself…” Kellaa tapered off meekly. For a Prince not in the line of inheritance due to the colder and bluer half of his heritage, Prince Magni was most enthusiastic on learning the details about the running of the realm.

“But Jötunheimr had surprise audits in the days of Mímir, and has since renewed the practice! And even Midgard has been doing the same for ages, although not as diligently as they ought to in some cases,” Magni slammed his drink on the table, the mead spilling over the rim of his cup. “Is this why all my father’s proposals on lowering taxes for the few draught plagued holds never went through, while the public funded construction of a new summer resort for the court was approved? With my father disheartened of late, and the Vanir fertility god Freyr favouring Jötunheimr while distancing himself from Asgard, our golden realm has seen less fruitful harvests of late, and could ill afford to waste her resources on frippery or worse stolen!”

Narfi yawned, “Calm yourself little brother. Even with audits, I have heard that Jötunheimr is not without waste, and have seen how Midgardians misuse and abuse their public’s trust. Stupidity and greed are universal, as Loki often said. And if the people do not wish to see their hard earned coins wasted on, ah frippery, as you call it, brother, then they should do something about it. People deserve the governments they’ve allowed to rule them, as Loki also said8.”

Narfi smiled lazily at Kellaa, while Magni fumed.

The god of accounting slowly scooted his chair closer to his friend and further away from the Prince, and thought perhaps maybe he’d do something about it. He’d take a peek at the books. After all, what could go wrong?

5\. And Midgard’s stock market crashed a few days after, caused by grievous accounting errors happening simultaneous across markets and continents.

6\. Odin had the murderous fire Jötunn clasped in shackles and thrown into the coldest water dungeons, for its betrayal of trust and the murder of two gods, Fitch the god of ruling and arbitration, and Kellaa the god of accounting.

Thor raced back to the capital from his outpost as soon as Loki’s magpies reached him, stormed into the AllFather’s court demanding his personal page’s release and a fair trial, and had to be bodily removed by a small platoon of Einherjars. 

Odin ordered his older son to remain at home and reflect on his conduct, for showing favouritism towards a murderer, and showing disrespect towards his King. While Thor paced in his own halls like a caged tiger, his gates watched by the AllFather’s men, Odin announced to all that Thor was birthed by a mother of low birth out of wed-lock, and was only made Prince because Queen Frigga was thought to be barren. But that was no longer true. He then decreed that Prince Baldr, true legitimate heir to the throne, was to be Crown Prince.

Magpies flew from Loki’s window to all corners of the worlds. 

Þrúðr of the golden hair sent back words to the court that she had heard of a good sword held near the borderlands, and would extend her travels in search of it.

Váli slipped down the tree branches towards Jötunheimr.

In the dungeons Narfi bided his time, his anger soothed by promises of revenge passed from his dam.

Loki tucked the sheets around a slumbering Thor, soothed his creased brows, and sidestepped from their room onto the Tree, only to slip out into a misty early morning. When the rest of Asgard woke that day at the crow of the cock, they found neither sight nor sign of all the Jötnar labourer slaves. Temporary chaos ensued as many services ground to a halt with no one left to perform them, and not enough funds left to pay for replacement workers.

Magni slipped past the guards to the busiest markets with a large bundle of parchments. The next day the capital was plastered with posters detailing evidences against Fitch and his unpunished cohorts in the form of ballads and poems. So gripping were the accounts, and so damning the stories they entailed, that tales from the posters were soon made popular songs in inns and taverns. The public, already angry and frustrated at the loss of conveniences caused by the loss of slaves, were quick to redirect that anger onto the stealing ruling class. So strong and persistent were their mutterings of discontent, that investigations had to be initiated for the worst offenders listed. The nobles involved gave excuses, deflected questions, hid their wealth and pushed the blame upon others. The less wily and fortunate, the scapegoats and substitutes, as well as a few of the guilty were tried and convicted. 

As the embezzlers and larcenists were led to their cells, a fire giant was quietly led out.

But new songs and tales were heard again at the lodge houses and drinking halls. They detailed the prosperity of Bilskirnir, and how well the people there lived under Thor’s rule. All these accounts confirmed by travelling merchants and tradesmen who hailed from the Thunderer’s hold.

A realm away, Freyr finally made a public proposal to frost lord Gerðr Gymirson, not for treatise or alliance, but for the latter’s hand in marriage. He was promptly rejected in a most succinct but firm manner. The AllFather sent a messenger detailing his displeasure at the Vanr lord, as well as a reminder on why the frost giants with their icy hearts could not be trusted. Freyr lent the poor messenger half an ear as he planned his younger son’s coming of age celebration.

After another poor season of harvest, new posters appeared on the walls, and new songs were sung, detailing all the advices the former Crown Prince and his first born son had given the King in all these past years, from matters of taxation to trade to disaster relief, from advices on education to military to inter-realm relations. Advices that have all fallen on deaf ears. Perhaps the AllFather was too set in his ways, see how well the hold governed by Thor thrived, how rich its residents, benefiting from the implementation of all those ignored counsels. Perhaps the AllFther was getting old, to make a toddling child the Crown Prince in favour of a tested warrior, to shun powerful allies such as Freyr for the company the Vanr kept in his bed.

The posters were torn down. The boldest bards arrested. The guards around Bilskirnir more than doubled. But more posters appeared where the old ones were taken down, and soon they started to appear in other cities and towns as well. 

Coupled with the mass escape of Jötnar slaves, the signing of a new open trade agreement between the Dvergar and the giants, and a formal withdraw of Álfheimr and Vanaheimr diplomats from Asgard, a general restlessness filled the air.

The golden haired shieldmaiden had indeed had found her fine sword near the borderlands. The border armies of Asgard remembered the Thunderer with fondness and respect, despite how the AllFather had moved the Prince from post to post all too quickly for him to gain any true foothold or deep friendship. Odin was wise and wily, but he had underestimated how much Thor had inherited Jörð’s greatest asset, his open heart, which drew people to both dam and son even in brief acquaintance.

A world away, spears were polished. Swords sharpened. The multitudinous hosts of warriors from the past marched forth from their burial valleys. And two maids took up the handles of the great mill again. Under the watchful eyes of its Crown Prince, Jötunheimr prepared for war.

Elsewhere on the Tree, a serpent stirred, a girl sighed, and a wolf, well-fed and groomed by two persistent travellers in recent years, snapped one of his binding chains with a twist of his head9.

Móði sat at his desk, and marked down a new entry on his journal.

7\. So much of a doormat, that the humans didn’t even know who he was. Prince Magni added Kellaa to the human’s book of wisdom called Wikipedia out of pity, but any attempts on creating an actual page for the god kept on getting deleted. “Is that even a legit god? No such deity was ever mentioned in the Eddas?” people asked one another.

8\. Loki is not the sort of character to fill his cold little heart with overflowing sympathy, as we all should know by now.

9\. Elsewhere elsewhere on the Tree, a gardener was hosting three very nice ladies in a private dinner party.

The gardener looked up as if startled, his hand still holding the ladle for gravy, and asked of the ladies, “Is it almost time? He who is called Hróðvitnir, Vánagandr, Fenrisúlfr…”

And the ladies answered one after another, “One’s end-”

“-is but another’s-”

“-new beginning.”  
  
**


	52. Extras: Waiting for Planting Season

_**Extras: Waiting for Planting Season** _

The Queen of Hel sat in her favorite garden, sipping her favorite tea, but there was a frown on her face.

“What troubles you, dear girl?” the gardener asked, pouring her a new cup of tea and stirring golden honey into it.

“Dada is asking me to lend him the hosts of Hel. The Norns know I do not have much control over that dead and unenergetic lot,” the young Queen sighed.

“Well at least they cannot get anymore dead than they already are, when they set out to try put an end to Him and calm the fire giants,” the gardener consoled the Queen.

“Talking about death. How did you end up in this realm, wise friend? You have a sensible head on your shoulders, potent magic at your command, and are of an age far too young to have ended naturally here,” Hela asked. She had always wondered, but never got the chance to ask before.

“Ah, a sensible head on my shoulders. Many would disagree, though I am much flattered. I suppose I chose my countrymen over my love, and paid the price for it.” In that instance, the usually energetic gardener looked almost melancholy.

**

He had memorized the patrol routes. His glamour was impeccable. And these good cotton sheets should hold his weight on the way down (getting a bit heavier around the middle, but such was middle-age and childbirth). Jörð checked the knot around his bed post again, and hefted his travelling pack over his shoulder. 

He was sad to say goodbye to his little room and what lay beyond its door. But his country’s needs superseded his own. He could not sway two Kings from conflict and war, but at the very least, he still had power and skill enough to alleviate his people’s suffering. Too bad with this He would never again welcome Jörð into His halls, and their poor child would never know his own dam. But Frigga was a good and selfless woman of infinite patience and practical wisdom, and would be much more suited to motherhood than Jörð with his absent-mindedness and flights of fancy. All children want to be with their parents, to Him Jörð had once said. But better that his own child suffers, than a hundred, a thousand, and more and more and more other children, torn apart from their parents by this war.

Jörð leaned over the window, and made ready to climb over the window sill, when he felt pain blossom across his chest.

He looked down, and saw the tip of a golden spear sticking right through.

Thou shalt not find what thou seekest, the Norns had said. But peace to live in and a love to call his own were such simple wishes, that Jörð never thought they’d be out of reach.

The last thing Jörð heard, before waking in a stagnant and gray landscape, were His curses cursing the faithless and fickle Jötnar kind, from dam to uncle to lover, for abandonment and neglect; cursing the cold and heartless beast, for betraying His trust and leaving its own son behind. He would make it stay. He would make it stay with Him forever.

**

The gardener saw the young Queen to his door, and returned to his backyard to work on his seeds and wait. They would be good to plant, when the world without Ragnarök finally comes.

**

When Thor’s forces overtook Asgard’s vault, half emptied by the AllFather in his retreat, Magni’s proddings and Fenrir’s keen nose uncovered a hidden compartment.

When the Thunderer smashed apart the reinforced wall with his famed hammer, a crystal coffin fell out.

Inside it was a set of painstakingly reconnected skeleton, with a shattered ribcage, a manly jaw bone, never-tangling white hair, and a pair of blue horns decked in gold growing out of its skull. The skeleton tumbled through the shattered coffin lid onto the golden tiles, which cracked like ice upon a lake in the spring, and revealed the rich black earth underneath.

From that earth flowers grew1.

** 

At the root of a great tree, three giant maids spun the retelling of an ancient tale, and sang the verses of ancient songs, about a young sky god who met a small giant and the menagerie that came with the latter, and their strive towards what they each hoped to be a satisfactory conclusion to their shared saga. 

What was destiny, but what men paved of their own paths?

**

** NOTES ** (that you wish you didn't read) **: **  
  
1\. Odin nearly dropped the Infinity Gauntlet in surprise, as a grayish hand reached and plucked away the soul gem he was trying to fit into the metal glove.

“Dearest Wôdan, aren’t you happy to see me? You looked so sad when you embraced my decomposing corpse and pieced together my bones. But now that our son has finally given my body its proper rites, I am back! If only for brief periods at a time”, Jörð, his handsome face shadowed by the pallor of death, said with a toothy smile2.

2\. Jörð was actually quite happy to see Odin, forgiving idiot3 that he was. He couldn’t help with the toothy smile though. The Jötnar are opportunistic omnivores, but they do prefer meat very much. Can’t go against evolution.

3\. But that didn’t mean he’d stand by and let Odin use something as dangerous as the Gauntlet against his son and dear grandchildren. Plus the soul gem was originally his anyways, and he never did agree to lend it to Odin4, 5.

4\. It was one of the various sour points between them.

5\. “…and what is the opposite of Love?” the Norns said as one.

“Indifference,” answered Jörð.

“And so with this you have answered all our questions satisfactorily. We entrust this stone to you.”

A nondescript little green gem dropped into Jörð’s hands.

But I don’t want the soul gem. I wanted to ask for a way to fix my Tree6, Jörð thought.

The Norns stared unblinkingly at him, silent once more. Their eyes though, were filled with encouragement and understanding. 

6\. Very little seemed to startle the Shadow King anymore, for to be a ruler of Jötunheimr was to be immovable and dignified. Yet Loki did make the most embarrassing yelp when a cold gray hand clamped down on his shoulder, and a cheerful voice said from behind him, “Dear me, you really needn’t try to make sense of this page, it was mostly just my silly little doodles to pass the time.”

When the small giant turned around from his desk, he saw a fellow Jötunn, of taller stature and broader frame, pale and washed-out as the dead tend to be, smiling down at him.

“How nice to finally meet you, grandson of my teacher and son-in-law of mine. Thank you for taking care of Thor all these years, handful boy that he is. Now would you care to tell me of your research on the Tree, and I will share with you mine”, the larger giant said.  
  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the End End!
> 
> Thank you all for sitting through Thor and Loki + family's trip through the realms and Eddas. Wouldn't have made it without you, dear readers.


End file.
